[While this column space is usually devoted to FR Publisher Jon Fleischman’s Daily Commentary, today we are pleased to present commentary by FR’s State Capitol Correspondent Dan Schnur.]
Redistricting Reform Urged by Bi-Partisan Citizen’s Coalition
by Dan Schnur
What do respected conservatives like Bill Leonard, Jon Coupal, and Jim Brulte have in common with Leon Panetta, Fred Keeley, and the head of the League of Women Voters?
Answer: they all agree that letting legislators draw their own districts is like letting third-graders decide how much ice cream they can have for dessert.
To be fair, none of the individuals listed above actually compared the members of the California Legislature to elementary school students, Neither did the eighty-plus of their fellow political, business, labor, academic, and community leaders who signed a letter this week from the Voices of Reform coalition to Governor Schwarzenegger and the four legislative leaders urging them to take the responsibility of drawing legislative and congressional district lines away from the members of the legislature and give that power to members of an independent commission.
So the ice cream analogy is mine and mine alone. But every member of this coalition does agree that there is an inherent conflict of interest that results from legislators directly determining the shape of their own districts. They believe that it contributes to the erosion of public confidence in government, undermines genuine political representation and has the potential to negatively affect the quality of public policy.
So they made it clear to Schwarzenegger and the legislative leaders that this conflict of interest needs to be stopped. They urged the governor and Legislature to put an initiative on this November’s ballot that would create an independent commission to draw district lines in the future. And they suggested that steps like these to create competitive elections in California would not only increase the ability of the state’s lawmakers to deal with California’s most pressing policy challenges, but that it would increase the voters’ regard for their elected representatives and begin to restore the trust of California’s citizens in their state government.
In last year’s special election, leaders of both major political parties promised to fix this conflict of interest. Through his support of Proposition 77, Schwarzenegger vowed to take away the power of state legislators to draw the own districts. But Prop 77’s opponents, including the Democratic leaders of the state legislature, promised to support an alternative solution that would resolve this problem as well. The Voices of Reform Coalition is simply reminding the leaders of both parties of the commitments they made during the heat of last fall’s campaign and urging them to fulfill those commitments.
In the interest of full disclosure. I am one of two co-chairs of the Voices of Reform effort, along with former Assembly Speaker pro Tem Fred Keeley. Fred and I have worked together to but together a bipartisan group of supporters of our efforts from across the political spectrum.
The members of this coalition include supporters and opponents of Proposition 77. It includes the authors of the most recent redistricting and its strongest critics. The individuals involved disagree vehemently on policy debates related to taxes, jobs, education, health care, public safety, energy, and immigration. But despite our partisan and ideological differences, we agree vehemently that California must reform the way it creates legislative and congressional districts.
The arguments in favor of redistricting reform are familiar. Safe districts create uncompetitive elections, which lead to unresponsive legislators, frustrated voters, and a political and governmental process incapable of addressing the state’s public policy needs. As many have said, it’s a system that allows politicians to pick their voters rather than the other way around.
For most FlashReport readers, the stakes should be even more obvious. When elections were run under competitive districts in the early 1990’s, Republicans briefly achieved a majority in the State Assembly. In the late 90’s, lackluster campaigns for governor and president consigned the GOP to an increasingly small minority status in the legislature. For good and for bad, the quality of campaigns had a direct impact on the final result. But now that safe districts have been gerrymandered for incumbents of both parties, the ability of Republicans to compete for control of either house of the state legislature has been eliminated.
Simply put, a fair redistricting done by a non-conflicted independent commission will not guarantee Republican gains (or Democratic gains, for that matter). But it will guarantee that both parties will have the ability to legitimately compete for power in Sacramento. That’s a major improvement for all California voters, regardless of party affiliation or ideology.
California voters have a choice: they can join our call for legitimate redistricting reform and demand that legislators remove themselves from the process of creating their own districts. Or they can continue to be frustrated as their elected representatives go back for second and third helpings of ice cream every two years.
(For those who are interested, the full letter from the Voices of Reform coalition and a list of those who signed it can be found here.)
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