Redistricting more important than term limits

February 13, 2008

Visalia Times Delta

Sacramento lawmakers blew it in trying to get voters to go for a revised system of term limits in last week's election.

Proposition 93 was thoroughly repudiated by voters at the polls last week.

We doubt that lawmakers will get another chance soon to revise the term limits measure. But they have a chance to make amends by addressing the issue of redistricting.

We urge lawmakers to do the right thing and to put the task of drawing district boundaries for the Legislature and Congress outside the reach of politicians. If that happened and California elections again became fair contests, perhaps lawmakers could take the next step and reconsider term limits.

We don't like term limits: They artificially determine who should and should serve in office, when the voters ought to be the judges of that. Since term limits have been in effect for the California Legislature, that body has suffered from loss of experience, knowledge and effectiveness. It has also suffered from loss of leverage in the constitutional balance of power with the governor.

But the proposal that lawmakers put before voters last week was underhanded and incomplete. Voters recognized that Proposition 93 was not a genuine attempt at reform but a stratagem for incumbents to stay in office another four to six years.

Proposition 93 ought to have been paired with a measure that would set an independent body to draw district boundaries for elections.

In 2002, when lawmakers last adjusted district boundaries for the Legislature and Congress to reflect the results of the 2000 Census, leaders of both parties agreed to a cozy deal in which they drew lines that were comfortably weighted to one or the other party. The plan worked: Incumbents in the Legislature and Congress are nearly guaranteed reelection. If it weren't for term limits, legislators would be elected for life.

When districts are drawn so one-sidedly, as much as 75 percent registered in one party, for instance, it does more than simply guarantee the election of the candidate from that party. It also discourages anyone from running against the incumbent from the other party. The two major parties don't bother to offer support or financing to anyone in their own party who is courageous or foolish enough to run against those odds. Ask any Democrat in Tulare County who has run for state Senate or Assembly or for Congress in the past eight years. The state Democratic Party offers its best wishes and nothing else.

That's bad for Democrats in Tulare County, certainly. It's bad for Republicans in Santa Clara County, too. But it's worse for the voters of California: They will never get a true choice of candidates as long as the two parties cooperate on setting up "safe" seats for each other.

This would not be hard to fix. At present, district lines are drawn by the leaders of the Legislature of both parties. It is strictly a political exercise. The U.S. Constitution requires under the "one-person, one-vote" provision that districts be equal in population. They must also be distributed along racial and ethnic lines in a way that reflects the composition of the area. Otherwise districts can be drawn without regard to geographic or political considerations.

For several years, a proposal has been presented to the Legislature to establish an independent panel of retired judges. In 2005, Proposition 77 proposed such a plan with three retired judges, one appointed by Democratic leaders of the Legislature, one appointed by Republican leaders and one by the governor.

That measure failed, probably because it did not go far enough. The judges ought to be appointed by the state Supreme Court. In addition, they should be given instructions to draw lines as close to geographical and political boundaries as possible and avoid gerrymandering. That would prevent having a district that runs from Visalia to Barstow, as Assemblyman Bill Maze's 34th Assembly District does.

Impartial redistricting would not make every district even. Some would still be lopsided, but not as many. And most would be more evenly distributed.

The point would be to give voters a realistic choice as well as to give both parties a chance to represent constituents. At present, unless you already hold the office, there is little point in trying.

Reforming the system of drawing districts ought to have taken place before lawmakers even thought about term limits.

Even if redistricting took place, it would take some time to convince voters that term limits are not necessary, because the ballot box is the ultimate arbiter of fitness for office. But giving Californians more opportunity to participate in their democracy would help.