Every state that uses a commission runs it differently.
B:
California: Considering how big and diverse the state is, I feel the commissioners have done a pretty good job at making initial maps that represent the state well. Simillar to Michigan, I like how this commission uses a system of "ordinary people", and overall the commissioners seem to get along well. I'm curious to see their final product.
I think CA is actually one of the easier states for a commission to do a good job on (aside from it being a lot of work due to its size). CA cities dont have dense cores, suburbs and exurbs arent as sparse as in the rest of the country, and non-desert rural areas are less sparse than in much of the country (orchards and produce vs grains and livestock). You could make a decent argument that LA (and bay area cities to a lesser degree) are really just lines drawn around collections of suburban tracts. In states with less uniformity of density, there is a big tradeoff between compactness and fairness to deal with since any compact districts in a core city are going to be doing lots of packing, typically of minority voters.
And in this context, CA really isnt that diverse. African Americans are the group that has the most distinct voting pattern (for now), but thats not a bigger group than the national average in CA.
I'm not saying the commission didn't do a good job (I dont know).
