Uneasy Rhetoric

Governor Schwarzenegger and others are pushing hard on reforming the way California’s legislative districts are drawn. There are a number of proposals but most share some common characteristics. Even though it is clichéd, I am going to draw on the title of a non-Schwarzenegger tough-guy movie to discuss, briefly, my feelings on this debate. You see, it isn’t all bad. Some of it is good. But some of it is ugly.

The Good. Just about every redistricting proposal pulls the process out of the hands of the legislature and gives it to an appointed group of officials. The proposal most often heard is to set up a panel of retired judges. I’m not sure I understand the retired judge fetish - I think a panel representing a spectrum of citizens and including professional demographers would be better - but I’m willing to consider it.

Creating an appointed redistricting panel would be largely symbolic. They might be able to create one or two more competitive districts, but making districts more competitive would not be their primary goal. They would need to create districts of very similar size that conform as much as possible to community boundaries.

This part of the proposal (such as it is - there are several) is the core reason for Common Cause’s support as I understand it. Common Cause is not endorsing a specific proposal currently under consideration (nor are such proposals being modified to accommodate their wishes).

The Bad. The Governor wants to redraw the districts mid-stream. If there was something substantially wrong with the districts (e.g. they were blatantly unconstitutional or contained wild population errors), this might make sense. However, the districts have been drawn and accepted. Redrawing the districts mid-decade is simply saber rattling by the Governor. Since he discovered he has no coattails when it comes to electing Republicans, even in districts that are already competitive, he is doing the only thing he can do: rattle on about how bad things are and hope an initiative solves them.

Legislative districts are drawn based on the decennial census. By the time we were ready to start the redrawing process it would be 2006. We would be on the downhill slide, only four years away from another census. Basing our district maps on data that is six years old would open any districts up to constitutional challenges because we don’t have good enough data to ensure that the districts are drawn with the equal populations mandated by the Constitution. It would be safer and far less expensive (by avoiding court drama), to wait until the appointed time to redraw legislative boundaries.

The Ugly. At least one proposal suggests redrawing legislative districts so that there is not more than a seven percent voter registration disparity between the two major parties. This does exactly the opposite of what the redistricting proposals claim they are doing: taking the politics out of redistricting. This would openly inject politics. In any other system (including the one we have now), we might be able to say “do not pay attention to party registration when drawing your legislative districts.” This proposal would make it explicitly necessary to do so, and, given the nature of party registration and its distribution throughout the state, it would become the overriding concern of those redrawing the districts. No more keeping communities together. Every district would become a “ribbon” district, stringing its way around the state in search of enough Democrats and enough Republicans to keep the registration edge tight.

Of course, this is also an attempt to increase the number of Republicans in the state legislature. Democrats don’t vote as religiously as Republicans do. A district with a slim Democratic edge is more easily won by a Republican than a district with a Republican edge is won by a Democrat. Sad, but true.

Yes, we do need redistricting reform. The sensible policy choice is to establish a redistricting commission with an open hearing process that will redraw the political boundaries after the next decennial census.