Editorial: California voters should embrace newest redistricting plan

Mercury News Editorial
Article Launched: 12/07/2007 01:37:37 AM PST

A coalition of groups that have been pulling out their hair trying to persuade the Legislature to reform itself have announced another effort to take a redistricting plan to voters.

A proposal by the California Voters FIRST Campaign for a 14-member independent commission has the backing of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose own proposal for redrawing legislative boundaries was trounced at the polls two years ago.

Other redistricting initiatives have met a similar fate. But the public's low esteem for the Legislature, and legislators' lame excuses for avoiding reform create hope that voters will say yes in November 2008.

They should.

The campaign's multistep process for selecting the commission would be complex, perhaps unnecessarily so. But the rationale for creating an independent body to draw legislative boundaries every 10 years is simple: Fair and impartially drawn districts would create the possibility of electing more moderate voices in the Legislature, receptive to policy compromises and reflective of the electorate at large.

The stalemate in Sacramento over water projects and health care underscores the need for political reforms. These are critical policy issues that lawmakers seem incapable of solving.

Under the current system, drawn up after the 2000 Census, legislative leaders cut a deal to ensure their own re-elections and preserve safe Republican and Democratic districts. They did it well; in 2004 and 2006, not one of 120 legislative districts changed party hands.

Incumbents have had only to get past primary elections to be re-elected. So they tend to appeal only to party activists, if they listen to anyone at all. A fractious Legislature, skewed toward conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, is a product of this system.

Redistricting wouldn't dramatically redo the makeup of the Legislature. But if even a half-dozen or so seats would be seriously contested, it would encourage moderates who could get crossover votes. They could make the difference in passing a budget on time and forging compromises on important issues like water and health care.