At first glimpse, one might not realize that Acton, a town of tumbleweeds and nearly 8,000 residents, could be the center of a political fight in November’s midterm elections. But this community, nestled across the Angeles National Forest near the Antelope Valley, is right in the middle of what is shaping up to be yet another competitive congressional election.
Ann McKeown, president of the Acton Democratic Club, doesn’t waste any time. The morning sounds of chickens and birds, alongside freshly brewed coffee, accompany her as she watches the sunrise and the world wake up from her front porch. McKeown enjoys the deep smell of sage as she begins her day fighting. She spends her days thinking and working on how to convince Republicans to vote for a Democrat.
“I talk with people and people talk with me, which is really valuable when they have concerns,” McKeown said. She asked community members to get out and vote before COVID made that more difficult.
Many community members tell McKeown they are primarily concerned with education and healthcare. But Mylessa Nickelson, a member of the Acton Democratic Club, said the water problem is also one of the most important needs of this rural area. Nickelson and her husband have a contracting business where she does all the administrative work and also trains horses.
Many people like Nickelson have wells and their county has requirements for how much wells should produce. But as they went drier and drier throughout the years, residents were forced to buy water from a Santa Clarita purveyor. The delivery cost is $135 per 4,000 gallons, Nickelson said, and during summer she needs at least three deliveries per week. The day the interview was conducted Nickelson said that her well wouldn’t pump anything and that it was completely dry.
This is not the only need in this area. A few places in Acton don’t have sewers, including Nickelson’s home which is in the middle of a 10-acre land. The problem is that having too many septic tanks together would destroy the quality of the little groundwater they can get.
“Other women talk about their diamonds or furs or what cars they drive. We talk about how much water we have,” Nickelson said.
While Nickelson hopes to have a Democratic representative address their needs in Congress, if an outsider stops by this district they will notice voters deeply loyal to their Republican Congressmember, Mike Garcia. Nickelson alongside activists like McKeown on the Democratic side aim to reclaim this seat and hope the new boundaries drawn last year through the decennial redistricting process can help their cause.
Given the district is now 40% Democratic and 30% Republican under the new boundaries, it is anyone’s guess how the November election might go, according to the Los Angeles Times. A few things are certain, though: Garcia looks to be headed to a rematch with Assemblywoman Christy Smith. Given he is the last congressional Republican in Los Angeles County, the district will continue to be among the most competitive in the state — and, with control of Congress on the line, possibly in the country.
Garcia beat Smith in 2020 by just 333 votes in a district that included Mono and Inyo counties, along with parts of San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties. Acton was hammered in with Santa Clarita at the time, when the 25th District included Simi Valley. The redistricting efforts took a “cookie monster bite,” as McKeown described it, out of North Lancaster and added it to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s 23rd District.
An independent commission redrew the congressional boundaries for California’s 52 House seats, so this district is undergoing some changes. The 25th Congressional District will now be the 27th District.
Maria Blanco, former commissioner at California Citizens Redistricting Commission, had a wide-ranging discussion with USC Annenberg in March about boundaries drawn and districts. Blanco is a civil rights lawyer and policy expert who deals with issues of employment discrimination, voting rights and redistricting, and immigration law and policy.
“I think the California system is a very good one,” Blanco said. “The independent commission and the independent process - independent of the elected officials drawing - as they say we’re used to the old redistricting of the legislators picking their voters, instead of voters picking their legislators.”
The North and West sides of the district look as if they were chopped straight with a butcher’s knife bringing in Lancaster, while the East side threw out Lake of Los Angeles and the South side shaved off Simi Valley, placing it in the 26th District as the district has gotten slightly more Democratic. The district is composed of 38.1% white non-Hispanic, 29% white Hispanic, and nearly 9.6% Black or African American (non-Hispanic), according to DATA USA.
Luke Stabe, a young man from Santa Clarita, described this district as a conservative area. As a Republican, he expressed disappointment about this year’s redistricting.
“I don’t think redistricting is anything less than gerrymandering to favor Democrats,” said Stabe. “It does not meet the needs of the people here because we are a conservative part of Los Angeles County and this is favoring to flip Democrats.”
On the Democratic side, the feelings are more positive about redistricting.
“All of Lancaster now is in the 25th and that is good both for addressing issues and for energizing voters,” McKeown said. “And then Simi Valley got redistricted out as the population changed and that actually makes a bit of sense to me. Well, they have almost nothing in common with the high desert.”
This is territory that has long been known as swing turf, with a few turnovers between parties in recent years. Democrat Katie Hill defeated Republican Rep. Steve Knight in 2018. Hill resigned in 2019 over nude photos that were published by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, which she proclaimed was an invasion of privacy. Garcia won over Democrat Christy Smith in a special election.
Garcia, a Santa Clarita local, is a first-generation American citizen from parents who immigrated from Mexico and he was highly decorated for spending more than 20 years in the United States Navy. Both a naval officer and businessman, Garcia currently serves on the House Committee on Appropriations and House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
Smith has been residing in Santa Clarita for the last 40 years and lives there with her husband and two daughters. She has worked as a state legislator who authored nine bills that focused on education, homeownership protection, college affordability, and were signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
As the primary election approaches on June 7, candidates of this competitive district will have to perform to the very best of their abilities to progress to the general election in November. They may have to win over from larger places like Santa Clarita to smaller places like Acton, and show how they will meet the wide range of rural needs of this district.
“I think that we ask an incredible amount of our elected representatives, they have more to do than they can possibly do,” McKeown said. “Our big push this last year in the Acton Democratic Club is to become the squeaky wheel. So hopefully, we will be raising the profile more and more.”