Much at Stake in California's Redistricting System

Cavala's history is skewed. The Democrats picked up 25 seats in 1982 and with or without a Democratic controlled redistricting in 1981, would have not have lost the Congress in 1982. The advantages of leaving redistricting in the hands of the Democrats, particularly Willie Brown and Richard Alatorre (who chaired the Electons & Reapportionment Committee), is that minority representation was much enhanced in the Assembly and Congress. Where the redistricting was bipartisan (as in the 1981 Senate plan and also the 2001 redistricting), minority representation is not enhanced. It is no accident that there is not a straight white male in the Assembly leadership whereas Perata (who is an excellent leader) is a white male, as redistricting in the Senate has never run to minority representation.

Democrats need to understand what is at stake here, and on that I agree with Cavala. John Fund has an article in the WSJ
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010735
describing the consequences of redistricting "reform"--not surprisingly, he is in favor of reform which turns power over to Republicans in California, while being silent about Texas, which was of course the true power-grab of this last decade.
But he quotes Tony Quinn as saying the Democrats might attempt to get a 2/3rd's majority in each house of the legislature, which he finds appalling. But Democrats should attempt this in 2011, as
California has an undemocratic 2/3rd's vote requirement for revenue measures (budget and taxation). Until that is changed to a simple majority, Democrats need to hold onto redistricting. This is the trade that should be offered to Republicans, with the 2/3rd's vote change coming first, say in November of 2008, and, only if successful, a redistricting reform (not including Congress unless other states go along) in 2010. There is no reason Democratic leaders should give away a procedure which hurts their coalition except for reform which benefits their coalition.

Publius, your history is inaccurate, while Bill's is incomplete.

Bill leaves out that a referendum quickly invalidated the 1981 redistricting plan. The Rose Bird-led California Supreme Court made the extremely controversial move of implementing the plan despite the qualified referendum, and the 1982 election saw both the gerrymander's aims successfully achieved AND California voters rejecting the gerrymandered plan.

The problem was that the referendum allowed voters to throw out the hideous 1981 gerrymander, but it did not change who had the power to draw the replacement plan. The new plan, signed into law just in one of then-Governor Jerry Brown's last acts before leaving office, was a bipartisan agreement between the Democrats and most of the Republicans who survived the 1981 gerrymander.

Publius, most minority-majority districts in California were drawn by independent courts in either the 1970s or 1991. NOT by Democratic gerrymanderers.

Johnson notes the 1981 plan was referended, but fails to note that the second plan, signed into law on January 2, 1982, was passed as an urgency measure for the Assembly and Senate, which means what you think is does--REPUBLICAN MEMBERS VOTED FOR THE "HIDEOUS" GERRYMANDER (unless Johnson is claiming that the 1982 plan was not a gerrymander?) Gee, that's the type of integrity I observed in the Republican Congress from 2001-2006.

As far as minority representation goes, most of the minority districts didn't exist in the court 1991 plan, but became that way in the 1990's, thanks to demographic change. The 2001 plan protected these newly minority districts, even at the expense of geographic compactness (the AD 30, 31 and 80 are all good examples of this, where populated areas are bypassed to maintain the ability of a minority member to win in the presence of widespread racially polarized voting. Incidentally, the AD80 has been represented by a Latina Republican, showing that the "gerrymander" is not really that at all, if the Republicans would give up their tired idealogy which is anathema to pretty much all thinking Californians and nominate candidates who take issue stances which are acceptable. What the Republicans are really after is a set of districts where they can have enough competive seats that, with 1/3 blocking the budget, they can roll enough marginal members to get whatever they want. Trading the 1/3 veto for redistricting changes is the only truely democratic reform here, but when we talk about selfishly refusing to give up power, Republicans don't mentino this.

Publius is correct. The Repubilcah Party would do better if they fielded better candidates.

Thoughts of obtaining a 2/3 majority in the Legislture through redistricing are, unfortunately, fanciful. Try mapping 54 Democratic seats out of a state population that is 44% Democratic - all the while obeying federal and state laws. Oh, then get the votes of those effected.

54 dem seats in 2011? We will certainly try Bill. Oh Yes! We will try.

Publius, you need to read my entire post before responding. I mentioned exactly the post-referendum plan adoption you accuse me of ignoring.

Johnson's exposition is somewhat confused:

"Bill leaves out that a referendum quickly invalidated the 1981 redistricting plan. The Rose Bird-led California Supreme Court made the extremely controversial move of implementing the plan despite the qualified referendum, and the 1982 election saw both the gerrymander's aims successfully achieved AND California voters rejecting the gerrymandered plan."

The referenda was in June of 1982, whereas the "aims" were not achieved until the November election. My point about Republican expediency still stands--if the Reps had not voted on the January 1982 redistricting as an urgency measure, it could have been referended, and (I think) Deukmejian could have called a special election in 1983 (he did anyway, on Sebastiani, which Cavala refers to in his original post) and the second "gerrymander" would have been invalidated and Deuk could then have vetoed anything he didn't like and either he could have gotten a plan he wanted or the court would have drawn the plan. The Reps liked their seats (this was before term limits and there was a lucrative legislative pension). In fact, I think the Dems have the wrong slant on things--they should just bribe the Republicans. There's going to be spent 3 billion this time around in the presidential, and how much was Cunningham on the take for? Not that much--it would have been cheaper to bribe him than run against him. And we could slip them a few pages, also (or maybe a stall in the men's room in the US Capitol allowing a "wide" stance).

P: Which one of us has the "confused exposition"? I leave that for the readeers to decide.

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