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REDISTRICTING REDUX – A PRIMER FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS ISSUE WON’T GO AWAY

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By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

1. Anything done by politicians, for politicians, is bad per se. There is no need to evaluate the product against other products or to look at the rules used by line drawers that are politicians. Anyone else would do a better job. (Cf. also #4, below)

2. Districts drawn by politicians can be labeled “gerrymanders” – another word for bad. Gerrymanders are “partisan”, favoring one party over the other. That’s bad because both parties should have an equal chance to win (if you value fairness over justice).

3. The current system lets “politicians choose their people rather than the people choosing their politicians”. I guess this is an argument against mapping together people with similar communities of interest? But it doesn’t tell us why; it just uses a sound bite.

4. Remove redistricting from the politician’s purview and, by magic or on the natural districts would emerge which are neat, practical, coherent, etc. It’s easy to construct these “natural” seats if the line drawers aren’t motivated by the unnatural concerns of politicians. Funny looking seats are per se evidence of “unnatural” political motivations.

5. Redistricting could resurrect a Legislature of Ken Maddy’s. Seats that could be won by either party would force both parties to run “moderate” candidates, creating a force within each caucus that would smother “extremist” politics.

So.

Should both parties have an equal chance to win all seats? Or, should as many seats as possible be drawn to give both parties an equal chance to win?

Well, two thirds of California’s voters are strong party voters – that is, they vote the Party not the man, issue or anything else. Those that don’t tend to be the least educated, least interested of all our voters. Why should seats be stacked to give the dumbest, least interested voters more say over who governs?

Democrats think Democrats act with more nobility in government than do Republicans. They would oppose a change in redistricting rules that hurt Democratic candidates (as they have 9 times in statewide initiative elections). Republican voters support any change that increases the chances of Republicans governing. The dumb, less educated “independents” wind up voting no on the basis of Berman/D’Agostino TV ads.

Are there “natural” seats that are neat, logical and so on? I encourage anyone to purchase redistricting software ($500) and, using the free database at UC Berkeley, try their luck. (By the way, only one such submission was submitted to the Legislature in 2001 – and it failed to meet state legal standards) Most of the “ugly” criticisms simply fail to note that city boundaries predate the geometric rectangles of census tracts, following far smaller census blocks instead. These “blocks” follow mountain sides, creek beds and other irregular geology. City lines follow such geologic lines - and some portions of city turf isn’t contiguous (there are dozens of Santa Rosa City “islands” surrounded by unincorporated Sonoma County). All this to say you can’t build districts out of whole cities (as state law insists you should) and still make them pretty.

Finally, a glance at the recent history of the legislature would show only a small handful of “moderate” Democrats in competitive seats making an effort to move their party caucus: I give you Gary Condit and his four friends. They failed, of course. I leave it to others to determine whether action that produces more Gary Condit’s is worth calling a reform.

It might also be worth remembering that court-drawn districts resulted in the Speakerships of Leo T. McCarthy and Willie L. Brown, Jr. – both memorable centrists?

Finally let’s look at the textbook application of this theory. Republican leader Ackerman rejects a conservative and backs a moderate in an effort to win the state’s most competitive election. His moderate wins the primary – then loses because a disgruntled conservative snakes away votes as a write-in. The point is that election campaigns have their own dynamic involving many variables – of which district registration is just one. The 21st AD – safe by any measure – was made competitive in 2004 when a billionaire Republican broke the peace-time spending record for legislative seats.

Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.

He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.

Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.

Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.

Posted on January 11, 2007

Comments

Since you have missed/ignored my response to your comment about restoring Hetch Hetchy, I thought I would track you down and post a summary of George Skelton's argument here, one you said was the definitive case against restoration.

Skelton believes the polluter, the City of San Francisco, should not have to pay to remediate its environmental crime because the cost is too high. In addition, he believes that restoring that habitat is not worth the cost, mocking decades of environmental progress by saying restoration would only allow environmentalists to “watch grass grow in a meadow.”

Do you really believe that Skeltons' are the best arguments for continuing to use a majestic valley in a national park as a water tank? Please have the intellectual honesty and accountability for your opinions to respond here. I have done my part to further this good faith discussion.

Posted by: The Rest of the Story at January 12, 2007 08:32 AM

"The Rest of the Story",

Mr. Cavala hasn't responded either to my earlier points about redistricting nor in challenging his hate mongering in comparing republicans, fellow Americans, to Nazi's by alluding to a republican "Final Solution" plan for illegal aliens. Outside of the high emotions associated with the issue, he doesn't respond to tough questions about what is the law, what it should mean and shouldn't our elected officials support the laws themselves. (You need to go back to Mr. Cavala's articles of the past week or so and read the literal exchange of comments or lack thereof).

When you put him on the spot, he responds with calling you a "radical" or saying you have no sense of humor, vice responding to the direct question or issue at hand that his readers challenge him with.

Mr. Cavala's is obviously an elitist in not seeing the glory of Hetch Hetchy, or what it used to be and could be again as his beloved Bay Area, an alleged location of environmental "enlightenment" shouldn't have to pay cold cash to fix a 100 year old wrong. He tried to hide behind the Skelton article and you effectivly called him on it.

Off on another business trip. I'll be back on your "six" challenging your elitist-hate from the center when I get back Mr. Cavala! It's been fun!

Posted by: Sid at January 12, 2007 09:56 AM

No serious politician in the Capitol would support spending what would be required to restore the original valley (in decades). The "crime" was committed early in the last century. Any "guilt"
would require a sense of history - something sadly lacking in the Capitol.

1. The public has other priorities that are expensive - and always will.
2. Nothing would be possible without federal support - and both US Senators thihk it's silly.
So does the new Speaker.
3. Except for Muir's lamentations there is precious little evidence that draining the resevoir
is a good thing. Shouldn't we spend money clearing the slide away from 140 first?
4. The BEE series (for these reasons) was considered ludicrous by those answerable (by election)
to the people. To get points with the BEE and the
more suspectible members of the Environmental Community the Govrnor agreed to "study" the idea.
(But now he is crusading for more dams, not for
tearing down existing dams).

The hetch hetchy debate distracts environmentalists from real issues - water quality, air quality, greenhouse gas, etc.

Posted by: william caval at January 12, 2007 10:00 AM

Ok, Lets keep Hetch Hetchy as a reservoir, but we will direct it's water from the Bay Area to the growing central valley. Then, perhaps we won't need the new dams in the GOV's proposal; no additional environmental impact and no taxpayer expendatures.
Of course, this will still require the Bay Area to find and pay for replacement water sources. To save the environment from new dam construction plus the cost to the taxpayers state wide, can/will Bay Area (environmentalists?) do this? Probably not...
Later Bill!

Posted by: Sid at January 12, 2007 11:05 AM

Dear Bill -you do very well most of the time,that's from 30 years in SAC. Your 5 points on redistricting were good, sounded like you're in favor. Then your futher comments (about 5) seemed to discredit redistrict plans and point out problems. OK, so you're flexible and not 100% in favor. That's OK
BUT, when you call "independents" dumb and uneducated,
that got my attention because I'm one of them and you're
on my list for careful reading, and further comment.
Lastly, can you tell me, is the reference to Ackerman
about the 21AD or some other district?
Thanks, Larry

Posted by: Larry Gallup at January 12, 2007 10:56 PM

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