Posted on 01/21/2005 8:51:19 AM PST by NormsRevenge
"Redistricting" isn't a word that easily flows off the tongue, nor is it normally part of the vocabulary of the average voter. But Californians are certain to hear and read it for at least the next few months as part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to reform the state government from the ground up.
Redistricting is the process of changing the boundaries of the districts by which voters elect representatives to office. When it comes to the Assembly and Senate districts for the state Legislature, boundaries are drawn by the Legislature itself. In 2001, leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties agreed to draw boundaries in a way that would lock in the existing seats held by each party, by creating districts with strong track records of voting for one party or the other.
The results of this arrangement are easy to see: Of the 153 state and congressional seats that were contested in November's election, not one changed parties. Not one. As the governor asked in his State of the State address earlier this month, "What kind of democracy is that?" What Schwarzenegger didn't add is that except for a handful, all of those electoral contests were decided by overwhelming margins. That is, in nearly every one of those races a huge majority of district voters cast their ballots the same way.
With district voting patterns well known, the challenge to incumbents is not from candidates in other parties but from within their own party. Incumbents' task really is to fight off challengers in primary elections who might try to out-Democrat or out-Republican them. This encourages candidates to hold far-left or far-right views that play well within their own parties. They race to the fringe of their party, but have no reason to reach out to voters in the middle. In Sacramento, the effect of this encouragement of extremism is that the Legislature is highly polarized, with very liberal Democrats and very conservative Republicans unable to agree on how to steer the state.
Schwarzenegger would take redistricting power from the Legislature and give it to a panel of retired judges, who would be instructed to ignore voting patterns and party affiliation of voters when setting boundaries. Fair districts would require candidates to compete for positions of moderation, reason and compromise instead of extremism, and the governor's hope is that a less polarized Legislature would have more motivation to work for the good of the state and average Californians, instead of digging in for the next election. This would be a welcome break from business as usual in the state government.
One solution is to create 30 (or so) super districts with approximately 5 representatives each. It would still be small enough for "local representation", but would make for very competitive races. Top 5 vote getters win seats.....Each voter could be allowed to vote for 5 candidates.
Do you think this will be taken to a ballot initiative if all else fails?
I think it's mandatory. Word is coming out that the CA legislature is expected to approve gay marriage this year (though Arnold probably won't sign it, imo).
It is going to take a California Constitutional Amendment, accomplished by the initiative, to effect apportionment in California. The Governor can't do it, the Legislature won't do it and the courts shouldn't do it.
That ignomanious decision needs desperately to be revisited and corrected. The founders had it right in the first place!!!
I don't like this proposal. On the surface, it seems open to more influence and corruption than we already have.
Well, as I said above. The State Senate should simply be made up of one Senator from each of the 58 counties, appointed by the majority of the 5 elected Supervisors from each county, except San Francisco County which has a ridiculous multitude of County Stuporvisors!!!
Have a computer do the redistricting.
On a map of California, draw a grid of 1 square mile squares. Start at the upper left hand corner of the state and start filling in squares until you have the correct population for a district. Keep doing it until you get to the lower right hand corner of the state.
This should take about 20 minutes to draw the Congressional Districts, the State Assy Districts, and the State Senate Districts.
That works for me! :-)
>>Have a computer do the redistricting.
I agree. A while back, I went and read the current law on drawing districts. It actually includes similar guidelines as to how districts should be drawn (e.g. objective should be to keep cities together as much as possible, same for counties, geographically contiguous, etc.). It seems to me that tightening up this language could solve more than half the problem, whether done by hand or by computer. I just don't like the idea of handing it off to retired judges. What makes them any more qualified or corruption-free than anyone else?
Living in the Soviet Republic of Ca., all the suggestions are good and hopeful. But, they are naive. The Dems control the entire Leg. and will do so for my life-time. The Courts are liberal strong-holds. The 9th District appeals court rules the roost in NoCal. SoCal may desire some better redistricting but an Initiative will not even get to a ballot if the Dems come out with their propaganda skills to make Pubs looks like Neanderthals. A state which continually votes for Boxer, Nunez,Watson, Waters et al , will not change unless we get an enlightened Hispanic group of voters to finally break from their Dem-Masters. Frankly, I do not care how re-districting occurs, court interference or not, but gerrymandering will seemingly always favor the Dems as their registration numbers show. Only if Pubs get to equality in registration, persuade Hispanics and Asians to really move to the Republican Party will any type of redictricting be even a possibility. Outsiders can not imagine the Dem reluctance to give up any safe seats and Pubs were as bad , wanting their own safe seats in SoCal. A computer generated outline which was tried in Utah, Nevada and some other SWestern states as models might work but don't hold your breath!
Your's is the best idea yet.
There's already a ballot initiative circulating. Get your copy signed and sent in post-haste!
Freepers in Texas generally love extreme partisan gerrymandering. We went from a 17 Dem 15 GOP disadvantage to a 21-11 advantage within one election cycle. And it really should be 22-10 because of one upset which probably won't be repeated.
One of the other redistricting initiatives in California had that idea, but I suspect it probably ran afoul of some federal regulations regarding voting districts, which may be why they switched to the judge-based approach.
Judge-based approaches are used in other states successfully. No reason why it couldn't work here in California. However, as a constitutional conservative, I'm reluctant to keep increasing the scope of the judiciary's power.
Some day, we will all have to decide to allow computers to "draw" up voting districts that contain approximately the same number of voters and are as near as possible to "circular" - so the voters are necessarily as geographically related as possible to each other. This "gerrymandering" is so completely stupid as to be untenable in the long run.
"I don't like this proposal. On the surface, it seems open to more influence and corruption than we already have."
I'm afraid California is at the breaking point, my friend. The California legislature is a political insane asylum, housing the most unreasonable of idealogues. They refuse to be reasonable on anything and one of their legislative priorities this year is to legalise gay marriage. This is insufferable. If Arnold doesn't Terminate this scenario, it's time to split the state.
>>If Arnold doesn't Terminate this scenario, it's time to split the state.
Into what? How does that solve anything?
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