California Republicans, Rose Institute, and Tony Quinn Dead Wrong on Redistricting

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By Steven Maviglio

It's sad to see the new chairman of the California Republican Party -- as well as respected former GOP redistricting consultant, Tony Quinn  -- accuse the Citizens Redistricting Commission of playing partisan politics -- particularly when neither of them are letting facts get in the way of their whining.

Quinn's got a bee in his bonnet because an organization that he is on the Board of Directors of did not get the contract to draw lines for the Citizen's Redistricting Commission.  Let me repeat, Quinn, who prides himself for offering "non-partisan, unbiased ‘insider' information," is using his website to pimp for an organization he is on the Board of Directors of (which he discloses) and which he has done numerous presentations with (which he does not).

First, he repeats the unsubstantiated claim that the people chosen to do the work, Karin Mac Donald and Q2 Data and Research, are somehow tied to the Democratic Party. This despite the fact a Republican member of the Commission said all such claims have been completely refuted apparently does not matter to Quinn (see my earlier post on this issue).

His particular concern is that Professor Bruce Cain is a minority owner in the business. Never mind that majority owner Karin Mac Donald has said in writing that Cain would have nothing to do with the project, Cain has said in writing he would have nothing to do with the project, and the Commission has made a condition of the contract that Cain shall have nothing to do with the project.  But why allow the facts to get in the way of a good story?

Quinn also shows his political amnesia in failing to remember that when pushing for the passage of Proposition 11 the proponents repeatedly cited the example of the San Diego city redistricting of how the redistricting process should work. The technical experts hired by San Diego: Karin Mac Donald and members of Q2.

Second, he is disturbed that the bid by the Rose Institute was disqualified for failing to disclose required information to the Commission.  What was this information?  It wasn't something trivial. They were asked to disclose information on their past donors and the political affiliations of the people they have done work for. Considering it was Republican activists who first raised concerns about perceptions of bias, it is laughable that they then object to the Commission asking questions to try to determine if an organization has ties that could create a perception of bias.

How ironic that Quinn uses as evidence of Karin Mac Donald's supposed liberal bias her work for the Lawyer's Committee when the only reason he knows about that work is because she made the required disclosures. What might we know about Rose if they had complied?

Quinn fails to mention that the Rose application contained flat-out lies. The Rose Institute checked "no" when asked whether any of the staff that would work on the project had any of the explicit conflicts of interest approved not by Commission staff but the voters.  But the resumes submitted by Rose Institute themselves revealed no less than five of the staff did in fact have conflicts, including three who worked for the California State Legislature in the last 10 years.  This is the clean-break from the past that Quinn thinks the voters had in mind?

And let's not forget, the Rose Institute staff have their own small business that they usually do all their redistricting consulting work through. It's called the National Demographic Corporation. If the burden of reporting was too high for Rose, why didn't they bid through that organization?  That they instead decided to try to play hide the ball with the Commission should make a cynic like Quinn suspicious of what is really going on.

If you go through the Rose bid it is clearly a sloppy, mess of a document.  Staff found no less than seven deficiencies.  They range from arrogant (like flat out refusing to produce required information) to sloppy (unable to follow the simple directions of including page numbers and tabs).  If you can't follow simple instructions, I for one don't want you handling the incredibly complex task of redrawing the state's districts.  Thankfully for California, the Commission agreed.

Third, Quinn is upset that the Commission decided to amend the experience threshold based on prior redistricting experience. He alleges a grand conspiracy.  Leaving out that absurdity, let's get the facts right: Under the original standard, Rose Institute would not have qualified to bid for the project.  The original standard required a bidder to work on two projects of over 1.8 million people.  Rose submitted three projects of 6.6 million, 1.7 million and 1.0 million respectively.  The first project was disqualified because, shockingly, Rose failed to submit required information.

So under the original standard, Rose would not have qualified either.  If staff had not changed the standard, Quinn would be writing about how the Commission was melting down and could not even attract one applicant to draw lines for it.  But again, why let facts get in the way of a good story.

Fourth, for someone who supposedly follows California politics, Quinn seems to have been out to lunch for the last six years.  He says over and over again that the purpose of Proposition 11 was to create competitive districts.  But that is just simply not the law.  Nowhere does Proposition 11 require competitive districts.  In fact it specifically prohibits considering political impacts in any way.  Quinn's goal may be to have the Commission artificially create more exciting races for him to pontificate about, but Proposition 11 was intended to create fair districts regardless of the political ramifications.

Part of creating fair districts does mean protecting the voting rights of minority voters.  It is no mistake that Proposition 11 made compliance with the Voting Rights Act the second highest criteria ahead of other criteria like compactness.  It is no mistake that Proposition 11 required Commissioners have an appreciation of the state's diversity.  It is no mistake that Proposition 11 required Commissioners be selected to reflect the state's diversity.

Quinn might not like that.  They may not think that is the type of redistricting reform California should have passed.  But if that was the case, they should have voted against Proposition 11 and tried to qualify something different.  Claiming you are an expert and then being shocked by the rules embarrasses no one but yourself.

Quinn seems so desperate to make his case that he has forgotten his own sense of political history.  His example of how the Commission has been taken over by Democratic interests, Maria Blanco, was the attorney for the organization that sued to overturn the 2001 redistricting plan.  Does that really sound like a Democratic plant to anyone?

The truth is, if Republicans ever lose their precious one-third of the Legislature that they use to further their goal of drowning responsible California government in the bathtub, it will not be because of the Citizens Redistricting Commission.  If Republicans become politically irrelevant, it's their own fault. It's a shame that Quinn and the new GOP chair find it more convenient to blame others for their fate.

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Steven Maviglio is a Sacramento-based public affairs and political consultant. He is the former Deputy Chief of Staff to Speakers Karen Bass and Fabian Nunez. This article originally appeared in the California Majority Report.