Daniel Weintraub: Holding Democrats to their promises

The Sacramento Bee

January 29, 2006

Those of us who watch the political world closely learn from experience to treat the promises and pledges of politicians with skepticism. So when the Democratic leaders in the state Legislature vowed last year to voluntarily give up their power to draw political boundaries, let's just say it was one of those things where you will believe it when you see it.

Senate Leader Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez made the pledge as part of their effort to defeat Proposition 77, a measure backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would have given the job of drawing district lines to a panel of retired judges. The leaders still have not delivered on that pledge. But it is at least beginning to appear that they might.

Momentum is gathering behind a coalition of groups that have long argued for ending the most basic conflict of interest in government. Several of those groups joined the Democratic leaders in opposing 77. Now they say they will pressure Perata and Núñez to keep their word.

The effort is being led in part by California Common Cause, whose national parent group backed Proposition 77. But it also includes the League of Women Voters and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which opposed the measure. Other participants include the AARP and the California Building and Construction Trades Council.

All of those groups have signed on to a statement of principles that differs in key respects from the measure backed by Schwarzenegger and soundly defeated at the polls in November.

The statement envisions the appointment of an independent commission of citizens to draw the new boundaries, rather than the retired judges called for in Proposition 77.

The statement backs the idea of drawing new lines only once each decade, after the census. Proposition 77 would have allowed new lines to be drawn before the end of this decade.

And the new statement calls for the lines to respect "communities of interest," a difficult-to-define term that gives line-drawers more leeway than did Proposition 77, which focused on following geographic features and city and county boundaries.

Even so, any lines drawn by such a commission would almost certainly be fairer and more reflective of our political geography than the boundaries drawn by legislators after the last census, which were designed to preserve the political status quo and protect the interest of incumbents.

Jay Hansen, political director for the Building and Construction Trades Council, said he thinks the current lines have helped hasten the recent decline in political participation, because they have in many cases severed natural connections among communities and their representatives.

"If you grab 10 people outside, ask who their Assembly member or senator is, any one of us would be surprised if one out of 10 could do that," Hansen said. "Why is that? That is not healthy for the government. It's not healthy for our democracy."

Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, says her group has begun lobbying individual members of the Legislature to try to keep the pressure on for a legislative proposal.

"If we can build momentum from the rank and file, there is a possibility that that keeps leadership ahead of the game instead of dragging their feet until the last days of August before throwing up their hands and saying that nothing can be done," Feng said. "So we are definitely in a pushing-forward movement."

The outlines of a legislative proposal can be seen in a constitutional amendment sponsored by Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat from Long Beach . His SCA3 would create a five-member commission to draw the lines, with two Democrats, two Republicans and a member of a third party or no party on the panel. The commission would be required to draw compact, contiguous districts, respect geographic features and city and county borders, and, for the most part, ignore political party registration and past election results.

That's a start, but a larger commission would be more representative of the state's population - addressing one of the criticisms of Proposition 77 - and its members should not be chosen by the Legislature, as they would be in Lowenthal's proposal.

Another red flag: The legislative leaders are talking about tying this idea to an overhaul and possible extension of term limits. While both need to be considered, they shouldn't be linked. Hitching the fate of redistricting reform to a loosening of term limits would be a poison pill, the height of cynicism.

That would be more like what you normally expect from self-interested politicians, not the new brand of leadership Perata and Núñez promised last year.

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About the writer:

•  Reach Daniel Weintraub at (916) 321-1914 or dweintraub@sacbee.com . Readers can see his daily Weblog at www.sacbee.com/insider . Back columns: www.sacbee.com/weintraub.