Independent legislative - redistricting is needed

Ventura County Star

September 28, 2008

With Proposition 11 on the November ballot, California voters have an opportunity to fix our broken election system in which legislators tailor-make their own districts. Too many Assembly and Senate districts are drawn by incumbent Democrats and Republicans to ensure their re- elections. Districts are no longer competitive. And bad things result.

First, since districts are shaped to favor one party, the favored party faces only token opposition in the general election. Real and meaningful competition between the parties is curtailed and there is less choice available to all the voters. Our elections have the polarizing effect of sending to Sacramento legislators who are more partisan than the population of their home districts.

Second, once in the Legislature, state Assembly members and senators are not accountable to their constituencies for the job they do. They are assured of re- election and lack an incentive to address tough issues. The result is that key social and economic issues get sidestepped. We all know California must reform its tax system, address the impending water crisis, invest in our state's infrastructure and face other key issues. Instead, our Legislature takes a pass.

With legislation that is mandated, such as enacting an annual budget, the result is stalemate. As we have witnessed again this summer, the Legislature misses the deadline for passing a state budget and Sacramento is deadlocked over funding vital state services. Why? Legislators have no inducement to compromise, to seek any common ground with fellow legislators - either of the opposition party or their own party.

The consequence is that Californians have become pessimistic about the capability of our Legislature. The most recent Field Poll in July shows that the Legislature has an approval rating of only 27 percent among registered voters. As I tell my students, it is not healthy to democratic participation when citizens lose faith in their representative institutions.

The good news is that we Californians can fix the problem. Like voters in 12 other states - Hawaii, Arizona, Idaho among them - we can take redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature. How would it work? Proposition 11 creates a 14-person independent citizens' commission, including five Democrats, five Republicans and four people not registered as a member of either major party. The selection of commission members would go through several stages, including screening by the state auditor, to ensure checks and balances and the overall impartiality and independence of the commission.

The commission's proceedings and discussions would be open to the public. Draft electoral maps and testimony would be posted on the Internet for public view. The measure strengthens protections for minority groups by requiring that the guarantees in the Voting Rights Act be a criterion in redistricting. It provides that electoral maps would recognize the geographic integrity of neighborhoods. There would be a good chance, then, that a community's shared interests and political needs would be represented in the state capitol.

Proposition 11 has garnered widespread and diverse support. It is endorsed by Common Cause, which, for 30 years, has advocated that states adopt independent redistricting commissions and create fair and open redistricting processes. It is also endorsed by the League of Women Voters of California, ACLU, and the California Republican Assembly.

More remarkably perhaps, it is endorsed by both Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. Appearing at a press announcement with Schwarzenegger in April, Davis said, "My experience in Sacramento was that sometimes the legislators, be they Democrat or Republican, would just check out on big issues because they knew, whether they helped or didn't help, they were going to get re-elected."

But support across the political parties is not unanimous. Some Democrats especially are skeptical, understandably resisting the chance that their lock on the Legislature would be jeopardized. Perhaps. But how well-founded can that legislative majority be if it comes at the price of ignoring the voice of voters? A majority of those voters, by the way, are registered Democrats.

Today, redistricting is a sophisticated science with expensive consultants using technology to gerrymander districts. Allowing elected representatives to shape their own districts is a conflict of interest. As young people like to say today, "That's just wrong!" Things are backward when, instead of voters choosing their legislators, legislators get to choose their voters.

This year, redistricting reform has a chance. Several times during the last two years, the Assembly and Senate have promised redistricting reform, but each time it has failed. Thousands of signatures got this independent redistricting initiative on the ballot. It is exactly the kind of issue for which California's initiative process was created - for the voters to act when the Legislature cannot or will not respond.

- Stephen Lefevre, Ph.D., is a political scientist at CSU Channel Islands.