SOCIAL: DETAILS: 'Deep Slate 2008: Yes on Prop 11

[Randall Isaac]

I'm going to disagree with Deep here and urge you to vote Yes on 
proposition 11.  Prop 11 is the latest in a long line of attempts to 
remedy the way state senate and assembly districts are drawn.  Currently 
they are drawn by the legislature itself, which means that the party in 
power (in this case Democrats) draws the districts with one, and only 
one, goal in mind: to make every seat a "safe" seat, so there is very 
little chance of it switching parties. 

Exhibit A for this approach is this map of the state assembly seats for 
the bay area.  Does this map look like it has any logic to you?
http://www.legislature.ca.gov/legislators_and_districts/districts/assemblydistricts_bayarea.html

This is bad for voters for a couple of reasons: 1) it almost guarantees 
that incumbents will be re-elected, seriously reducing accountability; 
2) districts are not drawn with any regard for geographic or community 
cohesiveness, making it harder to organize on those grounds.  Federal 
law prohibits gerrymandering districts on the grounds of race, but it 
can be done for *any* other purpose, and is.

Prop 11 takes control of drawing state legislature districts out of the 
legislatures hands and puts into the hands of a non-partison 
commission.  The prop goes to almost painful lengths to make sure it 
contains an equal number of democrats, repubs, and independents, and 
that bipartison consensus is needed to decide the results.  It also 
specifies that geographic and community cohesiveness is the primary 
determinant of districts.

The Bay Guardian is completely wrong in it's criticism.  If we stack the 
commission with Democrats as they suggest, then we will have exactly 
what we have now: districts drawn to protect Democrats.  The *only* way 
this can work is if the commission is bipartison.  Will this get more 
Repubs elected? Yeah, probably; if you make districts more competitive, 
then the party in power is likely to lose more of them.  But we 
shouldn't evaluate good government measures based on whether our side 
benefits or not.  I believe that more logical, cohesive, and competitive 
districts will benefit everyone.

Randall


Amandeep Jawa wrote:
>
> *11: No - BAD Redistricting Measure**
> This measure changes our broken redistricting system to one that 
> unfairly favors Republicans: This line from the Guardian puts it well: 
> "But as Assemblymember Mark Leno points out, the makeup of this 
> incredibly powerful commission would be dependent only on party 
> affiliation — five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents. 
> That's not an accurate reflection of California's population; 
> Democrats far outnumber Republicans in this state. "
>
>