To combat the politically motivated gerrymandering that split
South Valley into several congressional districts, local
Republicans are supporting a new Assembly bill that would alter the
state constitution and take legislative redistricting away from
elected officials and give it to a bipartisan panel of retired
judges.
To combat the politically motivated gerrymandering that split South Valley into several congressional districts, local Republicans are supporting a new Assembly bill that would alter the state constitution and take legislative redistricting away from elected officials and give it to a bipartisan panel of retired judges.
If that doesn’t work they’re prepared to back a ballot initiative sponsored by the group that put Proposition 13 on the ballot and spearheaded the recall effort against former Gov. Gray Davis. Democrats, who hold majorities in the Assembly and the Senate, have labeled the bill and the measure “a power grab” and say the state has better ways to spend money.
“There are some areas open for discussion, some room for improvement, but you have to look at the cost of doing it,” said Simón Salinas, D-Salinas, whose district includes San Benito County. “It will cost us $79 million. That money could do a lot of good. Do we really want to spend it on a special election when the voters just voted in November? It’s a power grab. Judges don’t live in a vacuum, they have their own political philosophies.”
Changing the constitution requires a super-majority in both legislative
chambers and must be approved by the voters in a special election. Proponents of the bill, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, say the change is needed to level the playing field for both parties. Last year incumbents retained all of the 153 Assembly, Senate and congressional seats up for grabs in the state.
Many attribute that to the redistricting that took place after 2000 census that turned legislative maps of California that had resembled children’s puzzles into works of Abstract Expressionism.
Salinas’ district stretches from Milpitas through San Benito County to the southern edge of Monterey County but doesn’t include Morgan Hill or San Martin, which are represented by John Laird, D-Santa Cruz. The 30-minute drive from Hollister to Morgan Hill passes through four congressional districts, and rookie State Senator Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, represents a district that ranges from Santa Maria to Los Gatos, bypassing Gilroy, San Martin and Hollister, but including Morgan Hill.
“It’s such a long and huge district that when I told friends two years ago I might run for a seat that includes Saratoga they thought I was crazy,” Maldonado said. “Politicians drawing lines for politicians doesn’t work. It’s like having a coyote build a chicken coop.”
Nick Rappley, press secretary for State Senator Jeff Denham, R-Merced, said Denham agrees politicians shouldn’t be the ones redrawing the lines.
“A panel of judges would be better than having legislators draw their own district lines, but right now he (Denham) is reviewing the proposals. So it’s not a definite right now, but he thinks it would be better than the status quo,” Rappley said.
California reassesses its 173 legislative and congressional districts after every census, redrawing boundaries and shifting representatives’ areas according to population changes nationwide. A state Senate committee collects public opinion and draws the lines, then presents the new maps to the Legislature for approval. Salinas voted for the current districts.
The bill introduced by Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Bakersfield, would hand the job to a bipartisan panel of five judges. The judges would be selected from a list of 25 candidates put forth by the California Judicial Council, an organization that evaluates judicial applicants and grades members of the bench. The two highest-ranking members of each party will have the right to strike one name each from the list. The clerk of the assembly will then pick a panel comprising two Republicans, two Democrats and one independent.
To be eligible, a retired judge cannot have been a political appointee, cannot have changed party registration recently and must promise not to run for office for a still undetermined amount of time. Where possible, the districts will be “nested,” with each Senate district overlapping two Assembly districts. Maldonado’s district currently spans seven, but still doesn’t match the congressional district of Democratic Congresswoman Lois Capps, who represents a swath of land that reaches 200 miles from Monterey County all the way to Oxnard and is rarely more than five miles wide.
Rappley said Denham is in favor of nesting and thinks it would make things simpler for his constituents.
“There are six assembly members overlapping in his district right now and it creates a lot of confusion for his voters. It would be much easier if they only had a few,” Rappley said.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage said Friday that the districts make his job harder because he has to deal with multiple representatives on local issues. He said that cutting Morgan Hill out of Salinas’ district was a way to discourage Gage, a Republican well-known in South County, from challenging Salinas.
“There’s no common sense to what they’re doing,” Gage said. “They just gerrymander to make sure their representatives get re-elected. They ought to do it without the party in mind because it just doesn’t work.”
Democrats control 48 of the 80 Assembly seats and 25 of 40 in the Senate. Maldonado said the Assembly bill likely won’t succeed, but he has hope for the initiative that may appear on November’s ballot.
“There’s not an appetite in the legislature to do that, but this will go forward through the voters,” he said.
The initiative is sponsored by People’s Advocate, the Sacramento outfit that has sponsored a number of controversial initiatives since the measure that caps California’s property taxes was passed in 1978, including an initiative to make English the state’s official language. Ted Costa, president of People’s Advocate, said that 1,000 volunteers will be out next week collecting the 750,000 signatures needed to get the proposal on the ballot. He said that redistricting is partisan in nature but won’t be if taken away from elected officials.
“Fair redistricting won’t give an advantage to either party,” Costa said. “Both parties will have a chance at putting their platforms before the people and seeing which platform the voters choose.”
Staff writer Jessica Quandt
contributed to this report.
