Redistricting initiative makes ballot

John Marelius
May 5, 2010

All in favor

Secretary of State Debra Bowen on Wednesday certified a congressional redistricting initiative as the third proposition on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

The initiative would add redrawing California congressional district boundaries after the 2010 census to the responsibilities of the Citizens Redistricting Commission that is in the process of being created as a result of voter approval of Proposition 11 in November 2008.

Sponsors of Proposition 11 that takes the power to redraw legislative and Board of Equalization lines away from the Legislature, balked at including congressional districts in the 2008 initiative after congressional Democrats threatened to spend whatever it took to defeat it.

But Palo Alto physicist Charles Munger, a major financier of the Proposition 11 drive, sponsored a follow-up initiative to include them anyway. A rival initiative, financed by congressional Democrats and their supporters, is in circulation that would abolish the citizens commission and give all redistricting back to the Legislature.

Munger submitted petitions with 1,180,623 signatures -- well over the 694,354 valid registered voter signatures required to qualify.

Already on the Nov. 2 ballot are the $11.3 billion water bond approved by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature and an initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana sales.