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Herdt: Mapping political change
Arnold needs a Democrat by his side to sell reform
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Monday that he will be tuning up his campaign bus to again hit the road to stump for redistricting reform.
Perhaps you remember the last time he tried that, in 2005. It was called Proposition 77 and it lost by a landslide, 60 percent to 40 percent.
This time around, Schwarzenegger is hoping for a different result, in part because he will have at his side a trio of nonpartisan groups that will perhaps enhance his credibility: Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and the AARP.
The purpose of the "Voters First" initiative is to take the power to draw legislative district lines away from the Legislature and give it to an independent commission. Voters have seen this idea before, not just in 2005 but also three other times over the last 25 years. Each time, they've turned thumbs down.
Has the climate changed? The most recent statewide survey on the question, done in September by the Public Policy Institute of California, found 66 percent support for the notion of creating an independent commission to draw political district maps.
But don't let that number fool you. The fact is, this new redistricting initiative has only a long-shot chance for success.
The reason is that voters are intuitively suspicious of any proposal that purports to be nonpartisan — and opposition campaigns are always happy to oblige those suspicions by revealing a real or imagined hidden agenda.
As pollster Mark Baldassare explains: "Voters want reform that isn't going to benefit one side or the other. They want to be certain that it's not about somebody trying to take advantage of somebody else."
That being the case, the governor and his band of reformers are destined to fail again unless they can come up with the missing ingredient from all the previous redistricting campaigns: a credible mantle of bipartisanship.
Voters know that, for all his talk about "post-partisanship," the governor is still a Republican. When he starts talking about taking power away from the Democratic-controlled Legislature, they will suspect a power grab.
The possibility is inherent in any redistricting scheme because the inescapable reality is that, no matter how you structure it, somebody is going to have to draw the maps. There's no way to eliminate at least the possibility of partisan mischief.
Give Common Cause, the AARP and the League of Women Voters credit: They've tried their best to concoct an impregnable system.
The initiative would create a 14-member commission made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four nonpartisans. Final maps would have to have the support of nine members, including three from each subgroup.
Anyone who is a registered voter could volunteer to be placed in a lottery from which commissioners would be picked. Certified state auditors would conduct the lottery and be charged with screening out any applicant who in the previous 10 years has had any personal or family connection to political parties or the Legislature.
It's a complex system, but there are those who believe it could be gamed.
Among them is Ted Costa, the conservative activist who authored Schwarzenegger's failed 2005 redistricting plan. Costa told me this week he is certain that both parties would recruit faux partisans from the other side to try to stack the commission in their favor.
Additionally, Democratic partisans have already rolled out an argument that might persuade voters that this is a Republican power grab. It goes like this: If the Republicans on the commission refused to support a final plan in time, the commission would default its authority to the state Supreme Court, which consists of six justices appointed by GOP governors and just one picked by a Democrat.
What all this means is that Schwarzenegger will need more than the League of Women Voters by his side. He will also need some big-name Democrats.
The state's most prominent Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, would not be a credible ally because the initiative exempts Congress from the reform. It would be transparently hypocritical for a U.S. senator to promote reform that affects state lawmakers but lets her congressional colleagues off the hook.
The two most promising recruits would be the state's last two Democratic governors: Gray Davis and Jerry Brown. If one or both were to join Schwarzenegger in assuring voters that this initiative is a politically neutral reform, it could have a chance.
But if there isn't a seat on that campaign bus for Davis, Brown or some other big-name Democrat, Schwarzenegger would be best advised just to keep it parked in the garage.
— Timm Herdt is chief of The Star's state bureau. Read his political blog, "95 percent accurate," at www.VenturaCountyStar.com/herdt.
Posted by sslocal on December 5, 2007 at 8:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The Dems have no interest in changing the districts as they are already slanted to favor them. Which is why we need to change them.
The state is held captive by Frisco and LA which together have populations higher than the rest of the state and vote Democratic.
Posted by Nosmo_King on December 5, 2007 at 10:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Good point sslocal. The sub-headline "Arnold needs a democrat by his side.." wouldn't that be his wife Maria Shriver?
Posted by jskdn on December 5, 2007 at 10:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Since redistricting as it currently exists allow the party in power to draw maps that benefit itself, no initiative that take that power away and gives it to an independents commission acting on different criteria can help but "benefit one side or the other."
Posted by del on December 5, 2007 at 12:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
sslocal...What party(s) would you have these 'Democratic' districts remapped to be slanted towards? Libertarian? Green?
Posted by sslocal on December 5, 2007 at 1:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't want them slanted towards any one party. I would like to see them redrawn on county lines myself. As they are currently drawn just seems a tad unfair. But, as I stated before, the left has no compelling reason to change them.
Posted by CaptainAmerica on December 5, 2007 at 2:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This is nothing but another power grab by the GOP. I'm voting NO!
Posted by sslocal on December 5, 2007 at 2:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Then you don't believe that the districts are slanted to the left Doc? You don't believe that Frisco and LA hold the rest of the state hostage? That for all intents the republicans are disenfranchised in this state?
Posted by CaptainAmerica on December 5, 2007 at 2:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Republicans are the minority in the State. Heck, the GOP won't even let independents vote in their Presidential primary, but the dems will. Republican registration is falling in Ventura County and the dems are likely to outnumber reps by the November elections. In terms of "holding hostage" isn't it part of democracy that majority rules? Or does the GOP only like that when they are in the majority? Maybe if you guys didn't bankrupt the Country with your un-ending war in Iraq you would still be running congress.
Posted by sslocal on December 5, 2007 at 7:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You talk as if I started the war. We both no that it ain't so.
I also have no influence on how the GOP runs the election in this state. Most are spineless idiots that cave to the left on a regular basis. Some don't, but most do.
I also don't agree with the current war policy. But to you I am simply "The GOP" so it must be my fault.
I agree that the majority rules and it has been this way for over 200 hundred years. Problem is when we, not I, hold the majority you can't stop b----ing to save your life. Funny how things work when the shoe is on the other foot eh?
Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Posted by lescornejo on December 6, 2007 at 1:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The only way to force the legislature to make good on their promise to address redistricting is with the threat of a ballot initiative.
Clearly, by registration the state is more Democratic than Republican, and re-drawing the districts will not change that, but making the districts more competitive by eliminating gerrymandering is a healthy thing for our government. Incumbents should have pressure to perform rather than a guarantee of reelection in a district drawn for an easy win.
Posted by mail on December 6, 2007 at 4:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Once upon a time it was necessary to group people of like-mindedness together. Today, we are able to communicate with anyone anywhere at anytime, locate them on a map, and also know what they care about. To continue basing districts on cities, counties, farming, ocean or lake/river property, etc is archaic and meaningless. No longer can a state legislator, city official, county supervisor, or school board member be only concerned about his/her surroundings. With the internet at the tip of our fingers, every word, every action whether spoken, written, or video taped is instantaneously sent out to the world whether we like it or not.
Therefore, a new rather simpler method of redistricting could be accomplished easily – by the click of a mouse. Starting from the northern most part of California (or any State), knowing how many voters needed to be in each “district,” bring a line from the ocean to the far eastern border to include the number needed to satisfy the district size (GPS). The underlying criteria would require that this district be a literal cross section of California (or other state). It would satisfy the criteria that the elected representative of this district actually had to deal with oceans, cities, farming, transportation, borders, as well as many social issues that cross-over and effect all people.
With the availability of the Global Positioning System (GPS), any kind of district can be created. There is a website where you can design districts similar but with the incumbents still retaining their districts (The RedistrictingGame.org). I was able to do this with each district having the same number of voters. The lines didn’t go straight across – a little wavy to include the incumbent or to add or subtract voters. My focus was to include each elected official be representative and represent their entire district – more likely to be empathetic of the majority of their constituents. I see no reason, this (GPS) “ocean to border” method would not be fair. It would certainly shake things up for awhile – hopefully, those elected in these new-fashioned districts would be able to accomplish more by working with a diversity of people in their own district, then at the state level, and also on the national level! Is that utopia or what!?
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