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July 13, 2005

The Democrats' Remap "Compromise"

(Cross-posted at Bear Flag League Special Election Page)

According to Dan Weintraub's excellent blog California Insider, the Democrat leadership has offered a proposed compromise to forestall the Costa initiative, Prop 77. Perhaps it's just an opening ploy, but according to Weintraub the "compromise" may be worse than doing nothing:

Under the Senate Democrat proposal, an amended version of SCA 3, the lines would be drawn by a 7-member commission, with four of the seven members appointed by the legislative leadership. In other words, a majority of the members of the panel would be beholden to the same people who draw the lines now. But there would be no governor to check their work. Only one appointee would be made by the governor. The remaining two would come from the Judicial Council and the president of the University of California.

The proposal's criteria are also thinner than offered in the Costa measure endorsed by Schwarzenegger. There's no requirement to nest two Assembly districts into each Senate district, which is a huge factor in reducing the game-playing. And there's no ban on using political data, voter history and incumbent addresses in the process. Costa bans them all.
The legislature's plan also seems to remove the governor's veto, since it is no longer a legislative action, and possibly removes the right to overturn the new districts by referendum. However, this plan may have been significantly revised in negotiations (the above is from late June). There is some indication that a new remap plan will be combined with a term limit extension -- so stay tuned. In this context, the Prop 77 suit might be viewed as a negotiating tool.

While I like the Costa plan a great deal -- it's pure and it's simple -- I'd be willing to support anything that separates politicians and political data from reapportionment decisions. Adding a few years to term limits doesn't bother me (so long as it doesn't restart any clocks).

Posted by Kevin Murphy at July 13, 2005 08:58 AM
Comments

I'm following Prop 77 with keen interest.

Nothing will do more to put a dagger in the heart of statewide political corruption than sanity brought to the process of redistricting.

Thank you, Kevin, for the ongoing attention you have dedicated to this issue.

Posted by: clark smith at July 13, 2005 05:10 PM

Even setting aside the prospect of outright rejection of Prop 77 at the polls (an outcome I both execrate and fear), there are a 1,001 ways to screw it up if it is open to the corruptive process wrongly called compromise.

Your concerns, Kevin, about an end product "worse than doing nothing [about redistricting]" are well-founded. The Dems will do anything to avoid the scuttling of their gerrymanders; we should expect 1,001 monkeywrenches to be lobbed at Prop 77 before all is said and done.

Posted by: clark smith at July 13, 2005 05:21 PM

In my opinion the best possible outcome remains Prop. 77 getting on the ballot and being approved. Sadly, I've seen the Democrats shoot down reapportonment reform in California so many times that I'd be hard pressed to expect 77 to pass.

Then again, I've seen electoral miracles before, in California and elsewhere...

Posted by: McGehee at July 13, 2005 07:17 PM