I made a mistake a couple weeks ago when I wrote about California redistricting. Even though I was a bit hesitant, I thought that there was a glimmer of hope that one could get a fair re-districting bill out of Arnold. Even though I was hesitant, and the comment section of the post was enlightening, I should haven known better. Like all Republican proposals I should have assumed an attempt at a larger power grab written and under-written by right-wing interest groups, and perpetuated under double-speak good government language in order to hide that the proposal is anything but good government. Having worked in two election cycles, with a brief glimpse Tom Delay's tactics on the Hill, I should have known better, and therefore I apologize. The bill(s) being pushed by Republican interest groups, and Arnold are nothing more than a naked power grab in order to push back California's Democratic leanings; they are NOT designed to create "competitive elections."
I'm only going to tackle one part of the main bill that Schwarzenegger has already endorsed and add more in subsequent posts. There is one bill in the State Legislature that's endorsed by Rep. McCarthy, who leads the Republican caucus. There are also several ballot propositions that are floating out there; one is written by the pusher of all right wing dirty causes Ted Costa (his proposal is significantly different from the McCarthy proposal, but must be assumed to be supported by California Republicans because Ted Costa is pushing it). As I mentioned in the previous post the McCarthy bill, which the gubernator has endorsed, creates a panel of three judges, who are to take redistricting propositions and then create their own redistricting plan. The bill tries to make districts competitive by suggesting that there not be more than a 7% difference between Republican and Democratic registrations in the particular district. In fact it makes them more Republican.
During typical redistricting efforts political parties, or non-partisan groups that are drawing competitive election look at precinct level Democratic and Republican performance figures. There are several different groups, both political and academic that determine the competitive nature of a political district. Everyone has a guru tied to a program that parses through several elections to come up with a precinct level performance in a given district.
When someone works in a state house race that is in a 50.5% Democratic performing district, it indicates in such district under normal turnout, between two unknown candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, 50.5%, (give or take a margin of expected people changing party affiliation or new residents into that district) will vote for the Democratic candidate in that race. When Tom Delay redrew Texas, or when any state redraws their maps both parties look to these numbers to determine the competitive nature of the districts they've just drawn The bill that Schwarzenegger is supporting precludes the judges from seeing, or using any such numbers to create a "competitive district," even though that is the practice in other non-partisan redistricting plans. Instead the bill requires the judges who are drawing the map to create districts that look competitive based on voter registration numbers. (ie, 30% Republican, 29% Democrat, 32% independent, the rest minor parties). There are a couple of problems with this, first anyone can register to whatever party they want and vote a completely different way. Thus greens may vote Democrat, and libertarians may vote Republican, Republicans may register Democratic to help their mayor who is now seeking a higher position, etc. It doesn't take into account independents who usually make up a large chunk of registrations in a district, but who based on their precinct act exactly like partisans from either party in a general election. There's also a general rule that despite voter registration, Republicans tend to outperform their voter registration in districts, and turnout in a higher rate than Democrats.
There is more than congressional district that has a double-digit Democratic voter registration advantage in this country, where Bush won handily, and is also represented by a Republican in Congress. It is just part of the nature of the beast.
California Democrats should get their act together, as they seem to have done recently, and make it clear that the gubernator does not have bi-partisanship, or moderation in mind when he pushes the redistricting plan. I think Tom Delay comes to Cali is as good a rallying cry as any at the moment; until someone comes up with something better. Dan Walters at the Sac Bee seems like he may be getting it.
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