Schwarzenegger's Prop 11, the redistricting plan taking control away from elected representatives and putting it into the hands of a bipartisan panel, is celebrating a victory with a 200 000-vote lead. The governor, frustrated by partisan divide in the capital has encouraged more competition in legislative elections, in hopes of bringing moderates from both ends of the spectrum into legislation. His philosophy is that this “will make it easier to reach agreements on budget reform and other state issues”. The passage is good for the governor because such legislation is something he's “been talking about since day 1 and it will be an important part of his legacy”.
Currently, Legislature draws the districts its members represent, which leads to efforts to “marginalize the minority party and to draw districts that favor incumbents of both parties. Schwarzenegger explains that when this happens “you have politicians picking votes rather than voters picking politicians”. The changes could bring increased competition for legislative seats across the state. The new rules of redistricting, which will start with the 2010 census, require a 14-member committee composed of multi-partisan individuals who will draw the congressional boundaries for the Assembly, the State Senate and Board of Equalization. The new rules do not allow space for “considering incumbent politicians or party registration numbers”. Instead they will create “communities of interest” and the districts will be composed of neighborhoods.
Prop 11, however will lead to changes not favorable to Democrats. The Democrats believe “as long as they control the redistricting gerrymander, they'll never loose control of the Legislature”. But, the reason why Prop 11 passed, in contrast to similar reform measures, such as Prop 77 in 2005, is that the Democrats did not fund the opposition team as strongly as they had in the past. Instead, Schwarzenegger put in his own $3million to support the measure, and good government groups, such as the AARP, Common Cause and League of Women Voters, raised $15million to support the bill, overshadowing the opposition's $10million. In addition, all the other important measures on the ballot allowed redistricting initiatives to “[fall] by the wayside in this month's election, overshadowed by the presidential race and Proposition 8. So because of the Democrats “other priorities”, their Congressional seats may not be as stable as they once were. Yet we all know the power of the incumbency and so I don't foresee massive changes in our legislature. But nonetheless, congratulations to the governor for his long sought victory, and may be have a more effective legislature in the future!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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6 comments:
prop 11 isn't necessarily a bad thing for Democrats except those who stick with the party only because of the name. By bringing in more moderate politicians Republicans won't seem as radical to Democrats and Democrats won't seem as radical to Republicans so instead of voting only for the party the electorate will vote for who is the best politician and representative. And while there might not be as many Democrats in power, a lot of their less radical beliefs will still hold strong.
and vice versa for Republicans. And just pretend there are commas in my previous comment where there should be.
Gerrymandering may not be a good thing, but I don't know if this measure will fix the problems of gerrymandering or just create new ones.
I don't know why this is posted really. For the most part gerrymandering is a bad thing, so this way there is a little bias so it represents the population as good as possible.
I don't see how the passing of prop 11 could be harmful in any way. With a bipartisan panel controlling redistricting, it virtually ensures that gerrymandering will be eliminated. I think it was Ohio that currently has a bipartisan panel, and since it switched over it has never had an issue with gerrymandering.
Now, we may finally have fair legislative elections. With fair elections come greater competition for the positions, which usually brings out the best and brightest politicians. While this might not help Democrats, it will give legislation a wider range of viewpoints, and will definitely help Schwarzenegger get more bills passed.
I think that, like every prop, there were some worrying aspects of this prop. The fact that the commitee is going to be chosen by the politicians could make it so the committee will be more partisan than expected. It is also worrying that the people that are on this thing will also not be re electable or answer to the voters so if they are influenced in any way there isn't much we can do about it.
I forget how to create a hyperlink but this is where I got my information. http://ca.lwv.org/lwvc/edfund/elections/2008nov/pc/prop11.html
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