Dan Walters: Legislature stalemate reinforced

Sacramento Bee ^ | 11/10/6 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

The two major parties and special interest groups spent many millions of dollars in one state Senate district this year, and the net result was a virtual tie.

Republican Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher eked out a 13-vote victory over Democrat Lou Correa in Orange County's 34th Senate District on Election Day, with hundreds of absentee votes still to be counted, and by Thursday, her margin had climbed to 138 votes.

Regardless of who winds up with the seat, it's a fairly meaningless contest. Partisan competition for the Legislature was all but eliminated five years ago, when leaders of both major parties cooked up a gerrymander of districts to protect the status quo. And it's been remarkably successful over three election cycles.

Two Assembly districts on California's southern edge and one Senate district in Central California that had been designed for Democrats were captured by Republicans in 2002, and their GOP incumbents all won re-election this year, but other than that, the 2001 gerrymander has held firm.

The gerrymander guaranteed that Democrats would control the Legislature by substantial margins for the ensuing decade, but not with the two-thirds votes that are critical on budget and tax issues. The real legislative contests, therefore, have been the Democratic primaries in Assembly and Senate districts where incumbents have been forced out by term limits, often with liberal candidates and their backers -- labor unions, environmentalists, etc. -- vying against more moderate Democrats with business support.

[Uncle Hal]

Hopefully one day we will have real contests.