Exploring the riddle of California's 450-mile-long 3rd Congressional District
DARWIN, Calif. — A little before noon on a recent Wednesday, residents of this improbable town halfway between Death Valley and Mt. Whitney gathered in front of the post office after the morning delivery.
For the last month their ritual has included tossing out campaign fliers and wondering how strangers can presume to know what's best for them. Today's conversation, however, turned on a friend who had just died and whether the road to the cemetery, rutted by August's rains, was passable.
Perched on a broad alluvial fan dotted with rabbitbrush and Joshua trees, this ragtag community of artists, misanthropes and urban refugees has little time for politicians.
"We'd welcome them if they visited," said Jim Hunolt, his dog, Sabi, at his side, "but we'd be just as happy if they didn't know we existed at all."
Hunolt's happiness is likely to remain unchallenged. Darwin — population 35 — is one of the most easily ignored ZIP Codes in California, and a new congressional district, laid out last year in response to the 2020 census, will probably do little to change this.
Nearly 450 miles long, the contains scores of small towns like Darwin from its southern border in the Mojave Desert where Inyo and San Bernardino counties meet, along the eastern slopes of the , the western shore of Lake Tahoe, to
