The California Redistricting Commission has canceled release of its Second Draft maps.

No, I’m not joking.

Citizens Redistricting Commission Will Not Release Second Draft Maps in Order to Gather More Public Input Throughout Line Drawing Process and Produce Best Final Maps Possible

Sacramento, CA (July 9, 2011) —

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission decided at their meeting this afternoon, that in order to produce the best district maps possible, it will amend its schedule and not release a second round of draft maps.  The Commission will be posting visualizations of proposed districts, and make equivalency files available for organizations and news outlets to provide greater detail to the public on the visualization proposals. The visualizations are proposed options for districts and are considered and discussed by the Commission at their meetings instructing the line drawers.

The final district maps are slated to be released July 28th and adopted by the Commission on August 15th.

The Commissioners are soliciting public comment on these visualizations and will be receiving, reading and considering those comments throughout their meetings directing the line drawers for the final maps.

The Commission will release more details early next week on how the public can easily obtain information, submit comment on the visualization proposals and follow each step of the process for drawing the lines.

The Commission will meet again with its technical line drawers on Wednesday, July 13th. The meeting will be streamed live at www.wedrawthelines.ca.gov.

Well, that was unexpected.  So we’ll go straight from visualizations to final versions.  I wonder if this means that they’ve been having trouble meeting the 3+3+3 vote requirement.