Schwarzenegger's Redistricting Proposal Would Give Power to Unqualified People as a Matter of Law

I hope someone will step up and spend the money to defeat this thing (Schwartzenegger leaving off Congress is a transparent effort to avoid any funds being spent against it). The 2/3rd's vote is the real problem--the current budget "crisis" would be easily handling except for this.

I could not disagree more with "The 2/3rd's vote is the real problem--the current budget "crisis" would be easily handling except for this."

The biggest problem is gerrymandering. I will let Pete from Pete Rates do the speaking for me:

The North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride. “I never,” he said, “take a step to one side. And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!”

A popular school of thought holds that today’s political atmosphere of intense partisanship can be largely attributed to non-competitive legislative districts. These districts are so heavily tilted toward one party of the other that they foster the election of strongly partisan representatives. Legislators from such districts tend to avoid working with the other party, because it may leave them vulnerable to charges of party disloyalty in their home district primaries. The result is that legislators are predisposed toward obstinacy and against compromise.

Is it happening in California? In a word, yes. A quick peek at our current districts reveals fantastically contorted gerrymanders designed to maximize the number of safe Democratic and, consequently, also safe Republican districts.

Consider, for example, the psychedelic, fractal-patterned State Senate districts 16 and 18. These districts’ interlocking spiral arms gently separate the Democratic and Republican neighborhoods of Bakersfield, Visalia, and other San Joaquin Valley cities. Even though the districts cover the same part of the state, District 16 has a 45,000-voter Democratic advantage and District 18 a 60,000-voter Republican advantage. (Each district has roughly 300,000 registered voters.)

The November general election means nothing in such districts. The majority-party candidate is assured of victory. Instead, what’s important is the primary contest. And how do you win a partisan primary? By appealing to activist and loyalist elements within your party. So candidates in primaries accuse each other of not being “true Republicans,” or of being too ready to compromise on core Democratic issues like the environment. Typically, moderates lose these primaries to hardliners. They are then rubber-stamped in November, even if there’s significant independent and crossover vote for moderate minority-party nominees, because the district registration is so heavily tilted. The result is a legislature (and Congress) full of extreme partisans, responsive only to the members of their own party, with no incentive to compromise or back down from obstructionist tactics.

The solution is more competitive districts. These will encourage legislators to be responsive to all constituents, since they’ll presumably need at least some independent and crossover support to win November general elections. To get more competitive districts we’ll probably need a new nonpartisan commission, whose formation must be approved by voters.

As far as redistricting goes, only two focuses should exist: 1. Are the districts as compact as possible without the least amount of tentacles 2. and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act?

It would be best to make it into a computer-neutral program where only head count is entered, along with anything necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act. It would start with equal sized polygons on the state, and they shrink or grow to make population equal and comply with the Act

You can play The Redistricting Game as well

This is also on Pete Rates, which Ben "neglects" to post:

Reducing the required super-majority will certainly speed things up. As it now stands, Democrats constitute 60% of the Assembly and 62% of the Senate. This is shy of the two-thirds required to pass a budget, so the Democrats will have to court the votes of a few Republicans to pass this year’s budget. As you can imagine, it’s a sticky business. The Republicans make outrageous demands, the Democrats refuse, and stalemate ensues.

The key phrase here is "the Republicans make outrageous demands." Of course they do, since one Republican vote counts as two Democratic votes.
This will continue even if there is a new districting plan in place, since the Republicans are the party of "strong" leaders, like the "strength" that got us into Iraq. The unit rule gives 20% of the legislature an effective veto over the budget. If you let 20% of the people veto anything they don't like, you are going to get obstructionism (the Bush administration seems to give only 1% (the top in income) a veto power over anything).

In any case, the districting example noted by Pete Rants (oops, Rates) which Ben posts so glibly shows how a district must be contorted to meet the Voting Rights Acts requirements, as the SD 16 is a VRA district and the SD 18 is correspondingly even more racist than it would be normally (the legal phrase is racially polarized voting, but it essentially means racism here). A glance at Asburn's web site (the current right-wing whack job occupying that seat) shows issues that concern him--mainly, preventing Californians from getting health care and slandering Al Gore and the Nobel Committee. Oh yes, there's also a post on his and other Republicans heroic resistence to Schwartzenegger's effort to get the Senate Republicans (this is 8 Senators out of 40, remember) to agree to a budget.

The point is, Asburn or someone like Asburn is going to have that seat, even if it were drawn to disenfranchise Latino voters in the Central Valley. If the boundaries of the SD16 and SD18 were rationalized by computer-generated compactness, the budget passed this summer would have had even more budget cuts than was otherwise the case, as the SD18 would still be right-wing nut territory and the SD16 would be either a supercilious Republican or a marginal Democrat ready to cave. This is the 2/3rds vote, not the districts, and I thank Ben and Pete Rants for making such a clear case for why the 2/3rds vote is the problem, not redistricting.

Incidentally, the redistricting does allow the Democrats a strategy for the next budget--refuse to go along with cuts and let the state run out of money. This would trigger a resumption of the car tax, the four billion dollar hole Schwartzenegger demogogued on to win the recall.

You totally took him out of context. He was pointing out exactly how the gerrymandering is the problem

I don't believe any means are justified by a good end. If you want to say that the legislature, which has an inherent conflict of interest in drawing its lines, should continue to draw its lines because it favors Democrats, then be up front about it. I look at issues for what they are, not for the partisan result

As for the car tax, the increase was ILLEGAL. Not one of the legal conditions to raise it had been met. If Arnold had not rescinded it, it would have been struck down and the state would have had to pay it back with interest

Second, what makes you so convinced the legislature would not have just spent the extra $4 billion? They have shown every bit of willingness to spend every dollar that comes in, and I don't know why the car tax would be an exception

Lastly, had the legislature just increased spending 6.8% each year, we'd have the deficit days behind us. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Instead, the increase it an average 8.6% each year, and I find it totally absurd for anyone to claim that an 8.6% yearly increase doesn't constitute as a spending problem, especially when we have nothing to show for it

I don't know what you're talking about with reference to disenfranchise Latino voters or how we showed that 2/3 is the problem. You don't need a reasoned response from me on that because you're more than capable of creating your own straw men to knock down

By the way, I am all in favor of reducing the 2/3 threshold to a simple majority as long as 2/3 is kept for tax increases. But I will not entertain the notion that the 2/3 is a bigger problem than gerrymandering, because gerrymandering is the disease, while the holdup in the 2/3 threshold is the symptom

Ben states:

I don't know what you're talking about with reference to disenfranchise Latino voters or how we showed that 2/3 is the problem.

I'm sure you don't but I will explain it very carefully. Pete Rants gives the SD 16 and SD 18 as examples of gerrymandered districts, which you quote at length. The SD16 is a Voting Rights District. To make the districts look prettier on the map, it would be necessary to throw in a bunch of racist white voters from the SD18, who would vote against any Latino candidate.

As for ends justify means, you want the 2/3rds vote kept for tax increases. This means you are opposed to majority rule for the sole purpose of getting what you want (ends justify the means, eh?) This is incredibly anti-democratic. Redistricting gives the Democrats the ability to stand up to people like you and return democracy to California.

And again, you don't need a reasoned response from me, you're more than capable of creating your own straw men to knock down.

Second, not all whites are racist, so if you want any credibility, don't say "racist white."

Are you seriously claiming that SD 16 and 18 just happen to have a huge partisan advantage and they were only thinking of the Voting Rights Act when they drew those lines?

As for the 2/3, don't put words in my mouth. I would support the 2/3 for tax increases regardless of the partisan composition of the legislature. You, on the other hand, are looking at redistricting from a partisan standpoint.

Why do I support 2/3 for tax increases? It tells the legislature "We understand that a tax increase is sometimes necessary. But before you do that, make sure you've cut waste. Make sure you've done all you can to ensure that us sending more to Sacramento will mean something. Make sure you've achieved a consensus. In other words, make sure it's absolutely necessary"

Lastly, on 16 and 18, see the forest for the trees. 16 and 18 are a small tree in a big forest of gerrymandering

Ben screeds (1)

Second, not all whites are racist, so if you want any credibility, don't say "racist white."

I was referring to racially polarized voting as defined in section 2 of the voting rights act. It's easy to show that this exists in the Central Valley--you can download the data yourself and run the analyses if you wish.

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Are you seriously claiming that SD 16 and 18 just happen to have a huge partisan advantage and they were only thinking of the Voting Rights Act when they drew those lines?

Once again, the VRA requires that minority votes not be diluted. There is racially polarized voting in this area even when the minority candidate is Republican. The VRA requires that these voters not be disenfranchised (unless Bush gets another appointment to the Supreme Court and completely guts the VRA).

(3)

As for the 2/3, don't put words in my mouth. I would support the 2/3 for tax increases regardless of the partisan composition of the legislature

2/3rds is anti-democratic no matter what the composition of the legislature. I understand your policy preferences are for less taxes (though "waste" is a code word for cutting government services without regard for the underlying needs of the population--remember how Schwartzenegger ran on eliminating "waste"? Still there). The 2/3rds rule favors your policy preference so you support it. If there were a 1/3 rule to raise taxes you'd be crying to high heaven, though both rules are consistent with anti-democratic orocedures. I see redistricting as a necessary evil for ameliorating some of the effects of anti-democratic rule, as my preferences are that children not go to school with untreated toothaches and that the elderly not die untended on the streets. Once upon a time the Republican party believed in those things also (look at Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon). No longer, and in California, they have an anti-democratic method of blocking the allocation of resources for what I consider reasonable government obligations (the children with untreated toothaches is all to real--about 25% of California school children are thought to have an untreated dental problem causing them pain--try studying with that).

Incidentally, these are not straw-men I am putting up but reasoned responses to your not-too-well-thought-out comments. I'm primarily doing this on the hope that Democratic policy-makers will realize that redistricting is the best defense we have against the pernicious effects of the 2/3rd's rule. I would gladly make a trade--majority rule for redistricting. The Republicans will never make that, as they know which procedure really gives power.

So I believe the constitution should not be amended without a 2/3 vote? Is that anti-democratic?

Gerrymandering is anti-democratic far more than the 2/3 requirement is. Gerrymandering involves the politicians choosing their own voters instead of the other way around. That's anti-democratic to the nth degree

And you cry majority rule, but you forget the key other part: MINORITY RIGHTS. We don't have tyranny of the majority, I'm sorry

About the VRA, answer my question. Are you seriously claiming that when drawing 16 and 18, they didn't take party into account and this huge lopsidedness in each district is a pure coincidence?

1. So I believe the constitution should not be amended without a 2/3 vote? Is that anti-democratic?

The California Constitution can be amended with a majority vote. Going to 2/3rds to change it would be anti-democratic.

Gerrymandering is anti-democratic far more than the 2/3 requirement is. Gerrymandering involves the politicians choosing their own voters instead of the other way around. That's anti-democratic to the nth degree

That's process, not outcome. The redistricting process does not really change the number of seats held by each party (the court plans in the 70's and 90's kept the legislature in Democratic control, except for the 50-year event in 1994 in the Assembly). What it does change is the number of Democratic legislators who can be "rolled" (Republicans can't really be rolled--their adoption of the unit rule shows that).

And you cry majority rule, but you forget the key other part: MINORITY RIGHTS. We don't have tyranny of the majority, I'm sorry

The US Constitution grants minority rights only for basic freedoms, not for economic matters. We have never had minority rights for property in this country until a few states adopted the 2/3rds rule.

About the VRA, answer my question. Are you seriously claiming that when drawing 16 and 18, they didn't take party into account and this huge lopsidedness in each district is a pure coincidence?

To create a VRA district, given the fact that white Democrats in the Central Valley vote in a racially polarized fashion, it was going to be necessary to put a huge number of Latinos in the district. Latinos are 4-1 Democratic.

Your last point should be of concern for every Democrat who thinks a commission is a good idea. People without experience in drawing lines underestimate racially polarized voting and overestimate the ease of a minority candidate winning. A commission will set voting rights back 20 years.

"The California Constitution can be amended with a majority vote. Going to 2/3rds to change it would be anti-democratic."

And a tax increase can be approved by a majority of voters as well. I'm not arguing against that, and we're not talking about that. We're talking about legislative vote thresholds, and they can't put an amendment on the ballot without a 2/3 vote

"That's process, not outcome. The redistricting process does not really change the number of seats held by each party (the court plans in the 70's and 90's kept the legislature in Democratic control, except for the 50-year event in 1994 in the Assembly). What it does change is the number of Democratic legislators who can be "rolled" (Republicans can't really be rolled--their adoption of the unit rule shows that)."

You have just showed me the problem. The problem is that all these seats don't change parties because they draw the lines in such a way to protect the incumbents. The only challenge incumbents have in this state is the primaries (unless they do something really over the line like Pombo), and those with extreme views win the primaries. Therefore they end up leaning toward partisanship and against compromise

"Your last point should be of concern for every Democrat who thinks a commission is a good idea. People without experience in drawing lines underestimate racially polarized voting and overestimate the ease of a minority candidate winning. A commission will set voting rights back 20 years."

If progress means that the legislature, which has an inherent conflict of interest in drawing the lines, draws the lines, and if "setting it back 20 years" means people who don't have an inherent conflict of interest draw the lines, then I'm glad to do that

I'm done talking about 16 and 18 specifically. As I said, they are two small trees in a big forest of gerrymandering. We have legislators drawing the lines to protect their incumbency by making their districts lopsided, and that can't be solely attributed to the voting rights act, period

The 2/3 vote for tax increases prevents a majority who doesn't pay a certain tax from raising it on those who do

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