Dick Spotswood: Marin may have a lot at-stake in redistricting

Dick Spotswood
Marin Independent Journal
April 10, 2011

THE most anticipated California political event of this year will be the June 10 unveiling of new legislative districts crafted by the voter-mandated Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Everyone in politics knows that redistricting is a very big deal. The outcome determines political life or death. It's a truism that the boundaries of legislative districts predetermine the result of every election.

The new nonpartisan redistricting commission is a threat to every incumbent Assembly member, state senator and Congress member, regardless of party. They understand that they've now lost control of a process that each regards as essential to their political survival.

The terror over new districts is particularly acute among members of the Bay Area Democratic Congressional caucus. They are in the process of quietly attempting to manipulate the commission to protect themselves.

If they get away with it, not only will they subvert the will of a public eager for honest redistricting, they will harm the North Bay and particularly Marin.

The most recent census showed the center of the state's population shifted southward. Some Democratic Congressional seats in coastal Northern California districts will be eliminated with a corresponding increase in Southern California districts occupied by freshmen Democrats. Despite the realignment, the state's Democratic-Republican split will not significantly change.

Unless the Bay Area Democratic congressional incumbents do something sub rosa to influence the commission, some of them will lose their posts or be forced to run against fellow Democratic incumbents.

In the old days, when a similar post-census situation developed, districts represented by incumbents soon to retire were "collapsed." Given that it's now universally presumed that Marin's congresswoman, Democrat Lynn Woolsey, will step down in 2012, her Bay Area congressional colleagues will try to convince the commission to abolish what is now her Marin-Sonoma 6th District.

Enter the Trojan Horse. Don't be surprised if Bay Area Democratic incumbents urge liberal social and labor groups to lobby the commission to ignore the Golden Gate or San Francisco Bay as a logical boundary.

They will try to convince commissioners that Marin's "community of interest" is linked with San Francisco and not Sonoma.

It's a preposterous argument that will be couched in whatever rhetoric is deemed appealing to commission members and their staff.

The reality is that Marin is suburban and rural as is Sonoma and decidedly unlike urban San Francisco. North Bay voters are committed to the environment, are socially liberal but fiscally prudent. City voters focus on social and racial-identity issues and never saw a tax they couldn't embrace.

The true community of interest is between Marin and Sonoma.

This effort isn't about facts. It isn't even about party. It's about personal political survival. The purpose behind this maneuver is convincing the commission to create a congressional district combining northern San Francisco with Marin.

The beneficiary would be House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and South Bay Democrats. Moving her district north frees up 250,000 San Franciscans, allowing them to be apportioned to San Mateo County Democrat Jackie Speier's district.

Everyone in Marin and Sonoma loses if the clout produced by a North Bay-centered district is eliminated. All agree that no Marinites could ever be elected in a San Francisco-dominated district.

The best strategy is for North Bay voters to testify at the May 20 Citizens Redistricting Commission hearing in Santa Rosa.

They need to be firm that Marin and Sonoma form a logical and historical community of interest whose southern boundary is the Golden Gate Bridge.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley shares his views on local politics every Sunday in the IJ. His email address is spotswood@comcast.net. Read his musings at http://blogs.marinij.com/spotswood/