California Proposition 11 -- Redistricting

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association | October 16, 2008 | Jon Coupal

[Czar]

Jarvis Taxpayers Association Endorses Proposition 11

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has announced the endorsement of Proposition 11 to stop the conflict of interest of lawmakers drawing their own districts and choosing the voters they want to help ensure their reelection.

"The current system fixes elections so that fewer than five percent of state representatives face a challenge to their reelection," said HJTA president Jon Coupal. "This has resulted in a climate where lawmakers do not have to be accountable to voters for effectively addressing problems like on-going budget deficits and out-of-control spending."

Proposition 11 will take the power to draw districts out of the hands of the politicians and put it into the hands of a citizens commission.

"Prop. 11 creates firm guidelines and a transparent system for drawing fair districts," commented Coupal. "We need to change districts so that candidates have to compete for our votes. This is the only way to make our votes meaningful."

[SierraWasp]

"The enemy of the good is the insistence on the perfect."

And the enemy of good sense is to buy into something that is screwed up because you just can't wait to get it done right a little later, so you go tearing off to do something, even if it's easily screwed with by your adversaries who are trying desperately to rush you into doing it because they already know how to game it to death!!!

That's just borrowing more trouble for your future.

[ElkGroveDan]

You are missing my point Wasp. They already 100% power to thoroughly rig the system however they want.

[SierraWasp]

I'm well aware of that as I presumed we both were aware of it. My point is, don't bite on this half measure that can still be gamed and saturated with ringers at a couple of levels... Make 'em keep trying till they get it right unless you want to take over the initiative process and do it for 'em on this issue.

I'm still sore over the fact that almost 50 years ago Earl Warren and the dumbass Supremes decided that "Cows Don't Vote" and jury-rigged half the State Legislature to look just like the other half, thereby making BOTH halves subject to gerrymandering!!!

You couldn't gerrymander the old original set up for the State Senate with one State Senator appointed by each County Board of Supervisors!!!

Now us rural property owners are stuck with taxation with lousy representation, while the city slickers out vote us at every turn and routinely remove our property rights!!!

Tell me why it wasn't equally as important to have one house based on "One Man, One Vote" demography and the other based on geography with "One County, One Vote?" It has at least a partial bearing on this subject of Prop 11...

[calcowgirl]

I'm leaning NO. I see it as a way for Arnie and his clan to snuff out conservatives. I don't know of a single district where a conservative lost because of the way the district line was drawn.

As to Coupal, I gave up on him a few years ago when he hooked up with Arnold and actually backed one of his big borrowing schemes. HJTA got bought, IMO--although they still occasionally take the right position on issues.

I also don't like the long list of lefties supporting this measure. And I generally don't like taking responsibilities and handing them off to some specially selected panel that can't be directly removed (as our elected ones conceivably can be).

[calcowgirl]

Ask yourself why the Democrat Party and the organized Left is against Prop. 11.

Huh? There is a long list of lefties supporting this measure.

[Amerigomag]

Any comments?

Yes.

I can't recommend Prop 11. Prop 11 is a manipulated, convoluted arrangement designed to favor the status quo.

Non-partisan redistricting is a simple process that can be developed by a junior, computer science major at Cal Poly. All the necessary data is already available and a coordinate geometry solution is almost elementary.

The most difficult aspect of the process is to seek the cooperation of the legislature, especially with regard to exemption of statewide office from local, geopolitical, boundary restrictions, specifically municipal boundaries.

Modern machine computing easily allows ballots taylored to indiviual registrants. Any limitations are driven by considerations for political gain. We have the ability to allow individual voters, residing juxtaposition, to participate appropriately in contests in different municipal, county and special district boundaries.