California Legislature upended by new political maps

Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, center, goes over the vote tally sheet for his state constitutional amendment that would allow 17-year-olds to vote in presidential elections, with Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, and former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, in Sacramento. New political maps have upended the Legislature in 2022. Berman and Low were drawn into the same new legislative district, but Low avoided the intraparty showdown when he said he would move to a neighboring San Francisco Bay Area district. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
Don ThompsonThe Associated PressSACRAMENTO (AP) – New political maps have upended the California Legislature this year by prodding more than two-dozen state lawmakers into early retirement or career changes, while others are forced into unfamiliar new districts ahead of the November election.Democrats still vastly outnumber Republicans in both legislative chambers. But all the jockeying endangers the power base of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and forced Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins to intervene to avoid head-to-head June 7 primary battles between her Democratic members.In one case, two San Francisco Bay Area assemblymen duked it out in a mock pillow fight after they were drawn into the same new district. But Evan Low ultimately said he would move to a nei
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