The LA Times article repeats the usual spin of the redistricting reformers:
Reformers say districts with more evenly balanced populations of Republican and Democratic voters would create more competitive elections and encourage legislators to pursue compromise instead of partisanship.
Nowhere does the article discuss the critics of these reformers, so I guess I'll have to do that myself.
For six years I lived in a state - Washington - that redistricts in exactly the way Arnold has proposed. Washington has been using this method to draw its districts since 1983. But the Washington legislature exhibits just as much partisan rancor as the California legislature. Republicans and Democrats rarely compromise in Olympia - instead they fight with each other just as often as they do in Sacramento.
Nor are elections particularly competitive in most Washington districts. Currently Democrats hold 2/3 majorities in the state legislature. Virtually all of Seattle, Everett, and Tacoma have long been Democratic strongholds, which has now been extended to all of King County. Very few Republicans now represent any part of the Puget Sound region.
This is because partisanship is NOT a product of legislative districts. It is instead a fact of American political life and has been ever since Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson formed the first political parties in 1792.
The notion that Republicans and Democrats are different because of non-competitive elections is absurd. The difference comes from very deeply held political beliefs. And the notion that the Republican Party in particular might become more centrist with redistricting reform is totally ignorant of the way that party has operated for the last 40 years. Since the conservative takeover of GOP institutions in the 1960s, moderate Republicanism has been dead in California. The only Republicans who survive primary elections are conservatives.
And it's going to be very difficult to draw districts that would give Democrats a chance to defeat such wingnuts. This is the other colossal flaw of redistricting - Republicans and Democrats tend to live near each other. It is simply impossible to draw competitive districts in San Francisco, the East Bay, Los Angeles proper, southern Orange County, Bakersfield, or Temecula - without engaging in gerrymandering of a more dramatic sort than has ever been done by legislators themselves.
The only supporters of redistricting reform are those who believe California sends too many Democrats to the state legislature, and who believe that we can send more Republicans with "more competitive districts." Realize that Republicans have 12% fewer registered voters in this state than Democrats, a gap that is widening. It is not possible to make all or even most districts "competitive." California voters have made their choices and we should respect those choices.
Redistricting reform failed in 2005, and it will likely fail in 2008. If Núñez wants to use his $5.1 million warchest for something useful, for something to build a legacy around, he should pursue changing the 2/3 rule. This is by far the best year to do so, and he would have a state grateful to him were he to champion such a measure. |
