Copyright Santa Clarita Valley Signal
Nearly 64% of California’s voters Tuesday supported Proposition 50, a move that gives the state five more blue-leaning congressional districts in response to a similar redistricting move in Texas by Republicans. One of the more impacted districts happened to be Rep. George Whitesides’ 27th Congressional District, which covers all of the Santa Clarita Valley and will continue to do so until the new maps take effect with the 2026 midterm elections. The new maps will put parts of the SCV into three congressional districts in next year’s election. The eastern portions of the 27th District that include Acton and Agua Dulce will go into the 30th District, which had a larger Democratic voter registration edge than the former 27th; and some western pockets of the SCV, including Castaic and Val Verde, are to be added to Conejo Valley communities in the 26th District. The 27th District, even with some portions carved out to the 26th and the 30th, will still encompass the majority of the SCV. Local and state ballots will not change. The new districts are set to stay in place until the 2030 Census. Both Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Ventura, who represents the 26th Congressional District, and Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, who represents the 30th, said in interviews Wednesday they are looking forward to getting to know the new parts of their districts on the campaign trail. Brownley said she was “very pleased” with the outcome, and “it will help in terms of looking forward to the 2026 election,” the six-term incumbent said. “I’m looking forward to getting out to my new part of the district,” she said, “and understanding what their concerns and interests and priorities are.” Friedman said the new lines mean “definitely a little more travel for me,” but she didn’t think that would make a difference for the former Glendale mayor. “What I do has always been the same — which is, that I try to stay really close to my constituents, and try to really get to know people,” Friedman said. Congressional representatives don’t have to live in the congressional district they represent, so even if Whitesides, an Agua Dulce resident, were to live in the 30th for purposes of the next election, he could still represent the 27th. The new dividing line between the two districts places the core areas of Agua Dulce in District 30. Whitesides did not respond to a request for comment on this story. How the maps changed In looking at the voter-registration numbers of the 26th, 27th and 30th districts, the 27th District represented by Whitesides saw the least change in terms of a red-to-blue shift. That district saw its number of registered Democratic Party voters increase by 2%, while the new number of Republican Party voters represents a 3% loss. Some of that went to the 30th Congressional District, which reached up from Burbank to grab slivers of the 27th. Of the three, the 30th Congressional District saw the biggest increase in registered Democratic Party voters, boosting the first-time congresswoman by 13%, with the Republican Party seeing an equivalent reduction in this district. Brownley, who has been in Congress since 2012, saw a 3% Democratic Party gain and a 2% Republican Party decrease in her mostly Ventura County-based 26th District, which includes the Conejo Valley and extends into Santa Barbara County. Who’s running The Signal has not received any campaign announcements in the past few days, but Federal Election Commission records indicate several candidates have declared their interest to represent part of the SCV prior to Tuesday, although the list is likely to change still. There have been no new declarations of candidacy for Whitesides’ 27th Congressional District as a result of the vote. There are two Republican candidates listed on FEC records available online: Jason Gibbs, who sits on the Santa Clarita City Council, and David Neidhart, who did not have any campaign information or contact information listed as of this story’s publication. For Brownley’s district in the 26th, there are currently four Republican challengers, although none of them appear to be from the SCV: Samuel Gallucci and Jonathan Wagoner, both from Oxnard; as well as William Scott and Michael Koslow, both Ventura County residents. In the 30th District, Friedman has a challenge from Democrat Pini Herman and Republican Dennis Freitosa.
