Taking politics out of drawing political districts

The Desert Sun Editorial Board
March 17, 2011

By the end of next year, California's political landscape could change dramatically.

Boundaries for congressional, Assembly and state Senate, and Board of Equalization districts will have been redrawn by the independent California Citizen Redistricting Commission.

No longer will they resemble Rorschach inkblots carved out to keep the majority party in power and toss some safe district crumbs to the minority party. Combined with the new top-two primary system in which the top two vote-getters face off in the general election, we could have politically competitive districts in which moderates have a chance of getting elected.

As Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters puts it, 90 percent of our legislators are “either true-blue liberals or red-meat conservatives.” This leaves out about half of the electorate who consider themselves moderate Democrats, centrist Republicans or independents. And it explains why, once again, we have a budget stalemate.

Gil Ontai, the San Diego County representative on the 14-member redistricting commission, told The Desert Sun this week the only consideration that might be regarded as political is that the districts must follow the federal Voting Rights Act. This guarantees that minorities have fair representation in government.

Districts are redrawn every 10 years following the census.

Ontai is one of five Republicans on the commission. Five others are Democrats and four are registered as “decline to state.” This mix was spelled out in the Voters FIRST Act, approved by 50.9 percent of voters as Proposition 11 in 2008. “But the goal is to have no political consideration whatsoever,” he said.

Starting next month, the commission will begin public hearings. Dates and locations will be announced next week. The public will be invited to draw maps at the Statewide Database at the University of California, Berkeley.

The maps must be completed by Aug. 15 and then reviewed by the California Supreme Court. “This is designed to eliminate nuisance lawsuit challenges,” Ontai said.