California has been gerrymandered to include several million Mexican voters.
Yeah, you can see by this map why California is the way it is today.
http://c365736.r36.cf2.rackcdn.com/maps_congress_20110815_all.pdf
Los Angeles really has all the cards. Even San Francisco isn’t the powerhouse that LA is. Five Million Mexicans make a big difference, and 80% of them are in the Los Angeles Basin.