Push hard now for reform

Push hard now for reform

Bakersfield Californian, The (CA)

July 14, 2006

There is little time for voters to push state legislators to put an initiative on the November ballot to change the way political district boundaries are drawn.

The redistricting process must be changed to allow truly competitive elections. This political reform is needed to restore good government in California .

If SCA3 is allowed on the November ballot and passed by voters, drawing legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization districts boundaries would be taken away from the Legislature and put it in the hands of an independent, bipartisan commission.

Senate Democrats slammed the brakes on approving putting the measure on the ballot just before leaving for their summer recess. The Legislature reconvenes Aug. 7.

SCA3 by Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, and Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach , must pass both houses of the Legislature by the end of August to be placed on the November ballot.

The present system effectively gives elected state officials and the major party bosses the power to hire or fire themselves and all but pick their successors.

They can do so by drawing lines that use party affiliation as a major defining value in districts, as long as they are numerically balanced.

No better proof is needed than the fact that since 2004 not one of the 153 elected state Assembly, Senate and House of Representatives seats changed hands.

And that is not a recent phenomenon -- it is traditional that the party in power tends to stay in power far longer than polls indicate voters want.

The Lowenthal-Ashburn plan would work to create more competitive districts by having a 11-member redistricting commission draw the boundaries with much more diverse values as standards.

The reform power lies in the requirement that as much as possible districts should respect shared cultural, ethnic, racial, historical and economic values, follow natural geographic features, and city and county borders.

Redistricting commission members registered in at least three political parties would be chosen by a panel of 10 retired state appeals court judges from a pool of 50 nominees.

The judges would be required to nominate people representing a diversity of parties, gender, race, ethnicity and culture.

Legislative leaders would have very limited power to appoint or object to nominees.

If challenged by a voter or the secretary of state, the state Supreme Court would rule.

The state needs many political reforms, but unless legislative races are truly competitive other reforms are likely to be ineffective.

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Section: Editorial Page

Page: b6