Legislators' safety despite their inaction shows need to redistrict. Making races more competitive would pull state politics closer to center

September 13, 2008

California's Legislature has never been so unpopular, as a record stalemate on the state's budget slogs its way into a third month. That suggests that incumbents could be facing a very angry electorate come November, and many of them might be at risk of being told to seek other employment, right?

Forget it. This game is so rigged that even with public approval of the Legislature at a record low 15%, according to the most recent Field Poll, it's unlikely that a single incumbent will lose a seat in the coming election.

The reason is that the districts in which the candidates compete have been designed to heavily favor one party or the other. Even with voter anger rising over the budget -- 84% of likely voters call the budget mess a "big problem," according to the Public Policy Institute of California -- nothing is likely to change.

As one observer told The Bee's E.J. Schultz this week, "Not one single legislator is in any danger of losing. The gerrymandered districts have made them all safe."

It's a bipartisan scam. Republicans conspired with the majority Democrats in 2001, when the current district lines were drawn by the Legislature, to create those safe districts -- even though the deal condemned the GOP to minority status for at least a decade. Protecting their seats was more important to Republican incumbents -- and Democrats as well -- than governing well.

All of that is part of the reason The Bee strongly supports Proposition 11 in November. That initiative would take the power to draw their own legislative boundaries -- except for congressional seats -- out of the hands of the self-serving legislators and give it to an independent commission.

Drawing district lines to make the races more competitive would have the effect of pulling California politics closer to the moderate center, and away from the liberal and conservative fringes where power now resides. In today's heavily Republican or Democratic districts, winning the primary is tantamount to automatic victory in the general election. That would not be the case in more competitive districts.

Critics of redistricting reform in general and Proposition 11 specifically point out that we'll never eliminate partisanship in elections. They're right. Partisan differences are why we have elections in the first place.

But the extreme partisanship we have in California is unhealthy. It leads to an atmosphere in which compromise is nearly impossible, as with the current budget standoff. If liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans had to respond to constituencies in their districts that were more balanced, they would be more inclined to exhibit those virtues of compromise that make effective government possible.

That's why we need redistricting reform, and that's why we support Proposition 11. It is no panacea, but it would be a big step in the right direction for this increasingly dysfunctional state.