I won’t pretend to have as much background as Mr. Roe on the national ramifications of California’s redistricting initiative. I have found him to be a reliable indicator of national impacts and trends. I’m actually more concerned, though, with the potential ramifications of the redistricting initiative right here in California.
One unpleasant scenario is the passage of redistricting and the failure of paycheck protection. In that case, the number of real legislative targets increases from, say for example, between 3 and 6 to between 10 and 15. GOP resources would probably stay about the same or increase a bit – enough for Republican Leadership to fully fund give or take half a dozen legislative targets. However, Democrat/Union resources, already grossly superior, could always be increased with additional member assessments which would allow them to compete with superior cash in all of the expanded target seats. The result of this uneven fight might well be to eliminate the Republican Assembly delegation’s “veto” power of budgets and other 2/3 votes.
My argument is not that we should not try to pass the redistricting initiative, but instead that business contributors and good government reformer types should understand that passage of redistricting without paycheck protection is not likely to put them in any better of a position, and quite possibly a much worse one.