Governor ties redistricting to changing primary date

Fresno Bee, The (CA)
January 21, 2007
Author: Dan Walters
BEE CAPITOL BUREAU

With the media fixated -- with good cause -- on health care and other juicy aspects of Gov. Schwarzenegger's second-term agenda, scant attention is being paid to his renewed call for reforming the way in which congressional and legislative districts are drawn.

Redistricting reform -- reducing or eliminating the Legislature's self-interested role -- is an old and monotonous story in Sacramento.

Countless reform plans have been floated, several have reached the ballot and so far, nothing has happened. In 2005, voters soundly rejected Schwarzenegger's own redistricting reform measure.

The Republican governor reintroduced the issue at the end of his State of the State address this month.

"California politics is a centrifuge that forces voters and policies away from the center," Schwarzenegger told the Legislature, pointing out for the umpteenth time that districts are drawn now "to eliminate party competition [and] work against the mainstream, which is where most Californians are. Currently, ours is not a system of the people, by the people and for the people. It is a system of the parties, by the parties and for the parties."

A few days later, Schwarzenegger made his annual appearance before the Sacramento Press Club and made another pitch for changing California's political dynamics by pushing its presidential primary election from June to February, saying it's needed to "make California a player" in choosing presidential candidates.

" California is not relevant," Schwarzenegger continued. "So what we want to do is, we want to make California relevant. And I think the way we make it relevant, this state, is by moving up the primaries maybe to February."

His drive for a February primary makes perfect political sense on the grounds he cites, and also from the standpoint of enhancing his evident desire to become an influential factor on setting the agenda for the 2008 presidential race.

That said, there is an intrinsic connection between Schwarzenegger's call for redistricting reform and his push for a February primary: The key to the former may be measures on the February ballot to not only change the redistricting process but modify legislative term limits.

While Democratic legislative leaders pay lip service to redistricting reform, they've dragged their feet on doing it, reflecting the simple political fact that they have absolutely no motivation to give up the Legislature's power to create its own districts. They -- and their chief constituent groups such as unions -- know that Democrats will control the Legislature in 2011, when the next round of redistricting is scheduled, and more than likely control the governorship as well.

The only leverage that Schwarzen-egger and other advocates of redistricting reform can wield is pairing it with modification of term limits, now six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate, most likely by allowing someone to serve all 14 years in one house. It would be especially attractive to the Legislature's two top leaders, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, both of whom would be forced out of their legislative seats and their leadership positions next year under current law.

Implicitly, Schwarzenegger is dangling the notion of placing redistricting reform and term limit modification before voters in February 2008, and if they pass, Perata, Nunez and other termed-out lawmakers could run for re-election in 2008.

Dan Walters writes for The Bee's Capitol bureau. E-mail: dwalters@sacbee.com; mail: P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852.

Memo: DAN WALTERS

Edition: FINAL
Section: LOCAL NEWS
Page: B3