Drawing lines

The set-up is a given: The party in power sets the rules, makes the boundaries, stays in power. The backers of Proposition 77 say they want to change this, to amend the California constitution and take the redistricting process away from self-serving legislators, and hand it over to a panel of three retired judges. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed onto the idea, and it is the measure most likely to have repercussions long after the governor has fled back to Hollywood.

The current system has the state legislature draw district maps every 10 years, following the US Census, and a bill is then sent to the governor to sign. The result has often been a state map of tortured shapes that follow no natural community boundaries, and deliver near-guaranteed job protection for incumbents.

But Proposition 77 carries some baggage that has left otherwise nonpartisan public policy groups on opposite sides of the issue. Common Cause has endorsed both Proposition 77 and another redistricting plan in Ohio, but the League of Women Voters of California is waiting patiently for a better one.

The measure was created by Sacramento activist Ted Costa, who famously initiated the movement to recall Gov. Gray Davis in 2004, and has been pursuing some version for Proposition 77 for at least as long. This time, Costa’s initiative actually made it to the ballot, with the support of the governor, but not all political reformers have signed on.

“We agree that reform is needed for redistricting, but Proposition 77 is just not the right way to do it,” says Trudy Schaffer, program director of the League of Women Voters of California. “There are several big flaws.”

Among the league’s main problems with the measure is that redistricting would now be decided by the three-judge panel, which Schaffer says could not possibly reflect the state’s diversity of political thought, geography, cultural, and minority interests. “We would like to see redistricting done by an independent commission, but it should be a better commission than this one.”

It’s interesting to note that the Ohio branch of the League has endorsed the redistricting measure there, where voters are being asked if bipartisan boards, rather than judges or elected officials, should draw lawmakers’ districts and oversee elections.

In April, Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift wrote that the proposal in California “looks like Tom DeLay’s Texas all over again.” But U.S. Senator John McCain has endorsed the measure, and is currently appearing in an expensive TV campaign, while legal folk hero Judge Joseph Wapner of the original “The People’s Court” has gone on the air to express his horror over allowing judges “too much power!”

According to a Public Policy Institute of California poll released Oct. 27, only 36 percent of likely voters support the redistricting plan, which is about the same number that still think the governor is doing a fantastic job (just 38 percent). The forces allayed against it are formidable. Roll Call reports that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and others have raised $7.2 million in the campaign against the measure, including an astonishing $4 million contribution from producer Stephen L. Bing.

“It’s close. We are working very hard out there,” says Mary Boyle, Common Cause press secretary. “It is a complicated, difficult issue. There are many political factors at in California.

“In California, the Democrats don’t like it, and in Ohio the Republicans don’t like it. It’s often whoever is in power who does not like it. We think that translates into something good for the voter, as redistricting would be.”

Complicating the issue this election is a section in Proposition 77 that would quickly impanel the three-judge panel in time for a mid-decade redistricting session — about five years ahead of the normal 10-year schedule. It’s only added fuel to accusations that the measure is just part of a gubernatorial power-grab, since Schwarzenegger himself would pick the judges.

“It’s interesting that it’s cast that way,” says Jon Golden-Dubois, Common Cause’s vice-president of state campaigns. “When you’ve looked at redistricting battles historically, politicians have fought over them tooth and nail no matter when they’re taking place. This is being used as an excuse for opponents who want to defeat the measure.”

Like the League of Women Voters, Common Cause has endorsed the Ohio initiative. But the group also chose to support the California measure as the best answer available for an immediate problem.

Golden-Dubois says Common Cause sees both measures equally. “Both of these will be a huge step forward over the existing process,” he says. “Both have the same fundamental concepts that we think are important in redistricting: They take redistricting out of the hands of politicians. Both set up fair criteria by which these commissions will draw the plans. And both establish a much more open and transparent public process.”

If Proposition 77 fails, there is a good chance that the League and Common Cause would align in a future attempt at redistricting reform. The hardest part, bringing some entrenched politicos to the table, is already behind them.

“In California, the governor’s call for reform highlighted the problem and brought a lot of people to the table who had not been willing to be there,” says the League’s Schafer. “What we hope is that 77 will go down, and the people who were willing to come to the table will actually carry forward on the promises they’ve made, and we’ll get something better on the ballot. I think there is a very good chance.”