Forums

[Spanky]

Its too bad people don't care about newspaper endorsements anymore.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE CHRONICLE RECOMMENDS: PROP. 77
A fairer way to draw lines
-
Wednesday, October 12, 2005

A SYSTEM THAT allows politicians to draw their own legislative and congressional districts is worse than absurd.

It's undemocratic.

The notion of allowing elected officials to artfully design their district boundaries was unfair back in 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts signed off on a redistricting plan that was so skewed to keep his party in power that one of the districts resembled the shape of a salamander.

Today, computer programs that can use party registration and a slew of other data to show voters' predisposition with stunning precision -- even within city blocks -- have elevated "gerrymandering" from an art to a science.

California politicians used data from the 2000 census to protect their respective flanks in impressive fashion. In November 2004, 153 legislative and congressional seats were on the ballot. Not a single one changed party hands.

The system is a godsend for the legislators in power. It is not so helpful for candidates who want to break into the club, or voters who want to have a real choice in an election.

One of the many outrageous contortions of the 2001 remap was the creation of a headphone-shaped congressional district to divide the San Fernando Valley's growing Latino population -- thus sparing two-decade incumbent Rep. Howard Berman the annoyance of a strong Latino challenger in the Democratic primary. Berman's brother, Michael, had been hired by the Legislature to help craft the lines.

Similar acts of shameless self-interest occurred up and down the state. A ribbon-thin district created to provide a safe Democratic seat for Rep. Lois Capps stretches 200 miles from the Monterey County line to south of Oxnard in Ventura County.

Rest assured, your elected "representatives" in Sacramento are not about to change a system that allows them to select their pool of voters, especially with one party in firm control of the state Senate and Assembly. It is no surprise that Democratic leaders in Sacramento and Washington are raising vast sums to defeat Proposition 77 in the Nov. 8 special election.

In recent months, we have expressed numerous concerns with Proposition 77, which would hand control of legislative and congressional redistricting to a panel of three retired judges. Despite its flaws, the system outlined in Proposition 77 is superior to the status quo.

Here's how it would work:

-- The independent Judicial Council would select a pool of 24 retired state and federal judges.

-- Four leaders of the state Senate and Assembly (two Democrats, two Republicans) would each nominate three judges from the pool. A leader could not select a judge from his or her own party. Each leader could then veto one of the other's nominees, reducing the pool to eight -- three of whom would be selected by random drawing.

-- The three judges would then assemble a staff and oversee the drawing of congressional and legislative boundaries. Their marching orders would be to keep the districts as compact as practicable and to follow city and county boundaries as much as possible -- as opposed to the find-your-voters games that produced the bizarre lines of 2001. The new map would take effect in the June 2006 primary, but would be subject to voter approval in November. If the voters reject the plan, the process would begin anew for the 2008 elections.

One of our concerns with 77 is its overly ambitious time line. Many local election officials are skeptical about whether the process could be completed in time to give would-be candidates a fair shot at knowing where they should be campaigning. Election officials also worry about whether they would have enough notice to get voter guides and absentee ballots to the electorate in a timely manner.

Supporters of 77 note that the initiative does not necessarily require the new boundaries for the 2006 primary election -- though that is their intention.

"If they can't get it done for 2006, they can't get it done," said Steve Poizner, the chairman of the Yes on 77 campaign, who saw the effects of redistricting when he ran as a Republican for a Democrat-tailored Assembly seat in 2004. "The only deadlines in there are for when the special masters are appointed, which will give them a fighting chance to get it done for 2006."

Our preference would have been for a redistricting plan that took effect after the 2010 census, when the lines could have been drawn with fresh demographic data. But we don't buy the argument that this mid-decade redistricting is some sort of Republican power grab, as some Democratic politicians suggest. One of the measure's strong points is the extent of its checks and balances against partisan meddling. A telling measure of its nonpartisan approach is the nervousness it has created at the Republican National Committee and among some Republicans in the state's congressional delegation, who are convinced their 20-member bloc could be imperiled under boundaries drawn without regard to incumbent protection.

Proposition 77 is not a referendum on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, though it is a component of his reform agenda. This is a vote about whether Californians have faith in their legislators to put aside their own self-interest to develop a new and fairer system of drawing district boundaries.

We don't have such faith.

The Legislature's most recent redistricting "reform" proposals amounted to laughably transparent attempts to assure they could hand-select their shills to control the process.

Both Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez have suggested that voters are not particularly interested in arcane redistricting issues. If Proposition 77 is rejected, legislators will interpret it as an affirmation of the status quo.

Incumbents, understandably, dread competitive elections and party leaders fear loss of control. Sorry, this is a democracy -- a democracy that is being subverted when politicians select their voters.

Vote "yes'' on Proposition 77.