When Proposition 11 was passed more than two years ago, I was worried that it was so complicated and convoluted that it was inevitable that the lines would end up going to court and be drawn by judges not the commission. Well the good news is the Commission did get through the Rube Goldberg selection process and is up and running and working very hard to organize itself to adopt maps by the rapidly approaching August 15th deadline.
The bad news is our Republican friends have already launched a concerted effort to blow up the process and make sure the Commission has no chance of finishing their work on time.
What is their latest complaint? Well apparently they have a problem with the fact the Commission is considering hiring Karin MacDonald, the Director of the non-partisan Statewide Database (swdb.berkeley.edu). They say Mac Donald is a Democratic operative. Of course facts are always secondary to their arguments. In truth, MacDonald is a registered Decline to State, has never done work for Democratic campaigns and rather has worked on a series of other independent redistricting commissions including one in my home town of San Francisco.
Of course they also leave out the fact that who they prefer really is a political operative: A Republican political operative. They are pushing Doug Johnson who used to work for Republican Congressmember Steve Horn. Hopefully the commissioners, Democrats, Republicans and Others, will see through this hypocrisy and make decisions based on what is fair, not who complains the most. If not, I'm afraid my worries of two years ago will be proven all too prophetic.
Tomorrow morning, we will get the first 8 names of the 14 member redistricting panel. The state auditor will randomly draw 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and 2 DTS/Others to serve on the panel. (Hey...look at that...it doesn't match registration. Must be good to be a Republican and overrepresented by 20%.) Those panelists will select the final 6 members.
Demographically speaking, most remaining applicants are either white or Latino; most are in Los Angeles County; and most have an income between $75,000 and $250,000. (Capitol Notes)
After the first eight are selected, you have to imagine diversity will be a big part of the goals of grabbing the last six members. But, beyond the question of ethnic diversity, the diversity of incomes is probably the more troublesome matter. This panel will be a fairly well-off panel that doesn't have the accountability that comes with having to scour for votes. That's good and bad of course. However, missing the perspective of those who are not economically comfortable is a gaping whole in this process.
There are other holes to be found as well. Notably, there is nobody from our largest city, Los Angeles. Also, there is only one member of a minor party, (the Green Party), and no members of any of the other minor parties.
We'll see what we come up with, but in the end, this whole process seems to be overblown and ridiculous. We're spending an order of magnitude more money on this so that we can have "more square shaped districts". Seems like a waste of money.
Also, I'll be waiting on Texas to do this as well.
Over at the San Berndardino Sun, they have what passes for an article on the redistricting situation. It starts with one premise, other states saw electoral upheavel, and maybe California was the exception with a Democratic surge, but there should have been some seats changing hands. And that's all the fault of gerrymandering.
"Other parts of the country have experienced electoral upheavals, and we have not," said Derek Cressman, the Western states operations director for good-government group Common Cause. "Here in California, our Legislature has an approval rating of either 10 percent or 13 percent, depending on which poll you look at, and yet on (Election Day) not a single incumbent in the California state Legislature was unseated."
Cressman and other political observers say there's a clear reason California's congressional and legislative seats seem nearly immune from political swings: gerrymandering, a problem that could disappear in 2012.(SB Sun_
Except, there is one big problem here. The good government groups and the media's infatuation with the concept of redistricting reform and "gerrymandering" won't change the simple fact of California's shifting demographics. The reason only one legislative seat changed hands? Demographics.
Let's be honest about this, rather than playing with some sort of grand vision about what Prop 11 will do. First, let's go back to the ranked criteria of Prop 11:
* Districts shall comply with the US Constitution, including equal population requirements.
* Districts shall comply with the Voting Rights Act.
* Districts shall be geographically contiguous.
* The geographic integrity of any city, county, or city and county, neighborhoods, or communities of interest shall be respected.
* Communities of interest shall not be defined as relations with incumbents, candidates, or parties.
* Districts shall be compact.
* To the extent possible, after the above criteria have been satisfied, districts shall be nested.
Is competitive in there somewhere? Did I miss it? Well, one could argue that excluding connections to parties or candidates means that there will be competitive districts, but the the first interest is that they are geographically tight. And therein lies the rub, and the truth comes out that what some of these players in this movement, Schwarzenegger and the right-leaning Rose Institute really want was more Republicans in the legislature.
But Johnson said voters simultaneously elected Democrats and showed conservative tendencies, approving the Republican-favored Proposition 26, which makes it harder for lawmakers to raise fees.
"I think if we had more competitive districts, there would have been a number of Republican pickups," Johnson said. "Republicans did better than they usually do, but the districts still protected Democrats."(SB Sun)
But looking back at reality, voters gave large victories to every statewide Democrat, save one race that is still being processed. More noticeably, they rejected Meg Whitman's outrageous spending to tell her flat out, her vision might be right for Texas, but California is different. California voters generally lean progressive, but comparing Prop 26 to actual political leanings is expecting too much out of voters that just don't have the time to figure out what it means. Perhaps they might have voted one way or the other had they spent the time to understand what it really meant, but as it was, all the information that they were getting on 26 came from Chevron and Philip Morris. That is hardly a bellwether of political leanings.
The underlying data just doesn't support the argument of the Rose Institute's Doug Johnson, or of Common Cause, or really any of the goo-goos. The 800lb. gorilla that is being completely ignored is that Californians have clearly sorted ourselves. If you draw tight districts, you get districts that are strongly partisan. That's the deal. David Latterman at Fall Line Analytics has done some great precinct by precinct analysis of the state. And as you can see, this is a very iedologically segregated state. The Progressives dominate the coast (where a majority of the state's population resides, and it generally gets more conservative as you head east.
The net result will be maybe a few additional tossup seats, maybe up to 5 in the assembly and 3 or 4 in the Senate. Congress would slot somewhere in between there. In the net, the Bay Area and LA are going to keep electing progressive Democrats, and the Central Valley is going to keep electing right-wing Republicans. And on the fringes there, you might make one seat that switches occasionally. But we'll continue to see incumbency (of candidate, not party) to reign supreme. Name ID holds great power in these races. But Common Cause just spent years of its existence to change the composition of a small handful of seats, seats that, in the current political environment won't make a huge difference anyway.
Congratulations on your big wins on 20 and 27. I'd like to invite you to celebrate with the world's smallest cupcake.
Because Prop 11 has been such an overwhelming success, the same folks are back with a November measure that will bring Congressional Districts into the Prop 11 commission. Yup, apparently they are so imressed with an unrepresentative commission to draw borders for millions of dollars more than the Legislature cost that they decided it would be worth another round. So, get ready for a fight this November:
REDISTRICTING OF CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Removes elected representatives from the process of establishing congressional districts and transfers that authority to the recently-authorized 14-member redistricting commission. Redistricting commission is comprised of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four voters registered with neither party. Requires that any newly-proposed district lines be approved by nine commissioners including three Democrats, three Republicans, and three from neither party. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Probably no significant change in state redistricting costs. (09-0027.)
The proponent of this initiative is Charles T. Munger, Jr. He can be reached at votersfirstactforcongress@gmail.com.
By the by, Prop 11 was supposed to have no significant costs either. However, the State Auditor has already blown through the amount of money they were supposed to get under the law, which was pegged to the costs under the Legislature. So, yeah, no costs, because we were hoodwinked the first time around.
Anyway, Charles Munger is Warren Buffett's right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway, so a very, very wealthy man. He gives money to some of these misguided goo-goo measures and a few right-leaning causes across the country. UPDATE: This Charles Munger is actually the son of the Berkshire Munger. My apologies for the confusion.
In 2008, for some reason the voters of the state of California approved Prop 11, a measure that takes away redistricting from the Legislature and gives it to an independent commission. Tom Friedman, in a column from a few days ago that greatly pissed off the Tea Partiers on all sorts of fronts, wrote that the "radical center" needs to emulate this everywhere.
First, let every state emulate California's recent grass-roots initiative that took away the power to design state electoral districts from the state legislature and put it in the hands of an independent, politically neutral, Citizens Redistricting Commission. It will go to work after the 2010 census and reshape California's state legislative districts for the coming elections. Henceforth, districts in California will not be designed to be automatically Democratic or Republican - so more of them will be competitive, so more candidates will only be electable if they appeal to the center, not just cater to one party. (There is a movement pressing for the same independent commission to be given the power to redraw Congressional districts.) (NYT)
So, let's go over the results so far of that measure. There's a fancy (for 2006) website. It's come up with a pool of "qualified" applicants that are disproportionately white, male Republicans. And oh right, it's massively over budget and won't look at a map for another year. Nice that they convinced the legislative analyst to score it on the cheap, but this will end up being about ten times as expensive as the old process. Yay for that, right Tom Friedman.
But the more glaring omission in Friedman's logic is the absence of any real facts to back up the naked assertion that "districts in California will not be designed to be automatically Democratic or Republican." I call Bullshit.
It is important to note that competitive elections are far from the primary goal of the commission. Communities of interest, county lines, and, of course, Voting Rights Act concerns come far ahead of competitiveness. Let's look at California regionally, rather than district by district, and then apply the Prop 11 standards.
The Bay Area is overwhelmingly Democratic, no matter how you slice or dice it up. The only way you break one party rule here is to mix in some Central Valley voters, but that would be breaking the communities of interest rule, and so, we're back at districts that will be most definitely "automatically Democratic." The same is true for much of LA County. Yes you could add some upland votes to more Democratic districts, but you'd be running afoul of higher priority redistricting guidelines.
Other parts of the state, such as the Central Valley and Orange County, face the same issue, only with Republicans holding most of the seats. You'd have to grab different communities of interest to really make the elections competitive. Now, you could actually argue that you could break up the Democratic core of Santa Ana to make the rest of the OC competitive, but there you would probably begin to discuss Voting Rights Act issues. The Central Valley already produces Friedman's radical moderates, and I think the process of blue-ing the Central Valley continues for some time. But over the next 10-20 years, there will continue to be a steady stream of moderates emerging.
The rest of the state is basically the same. The underlying issue that Friedman totally ignores is that we have become highly self-sorted. We have chosen where we live in such a way that there is a dominant political leaning in most of our communities. You can't just wipe that away by playing with the maps anymore. Perhaps 40 years ago you could draw a map that focuses on competitiveness, but, at least in California, those days are gone.
Instead, we'll get minor alterations that will change the shape of the districts, but not the political leanings. Maybe we'll net five or six competitive districts, but it is hardly the big change that Friedman suggests. But don't expect the facts in California to change the words in Friedman's New York Times columns, that might involve him questioning just how large his "radical center" really is.
I've got nothing against white males. After all, I am one. But when it comes to a panel pretending to represent the state, these are some very disconcerting numbers:
The deadline for Californians to apply for a first-of-its-kind citizens commission to draw districts for legislative elections ended Tuesday night with the field of applicants tilting heavily toward white men. Of the nearly 31,000 applications received, whites submitted 70 percent, far higher than their 41 percent share of California's population. (SacBee)
Latinos were the most heavily under-represented, with only about 11.5% in the pool despite their 37% share of the state's population.
During the Prop 11 campaign, minority organizations across the state opposed this nonsense, saying that this exact situation would occur. And sure enough, here we are. I hope everybody remembers this day when the ballot proposition to use a similar pattern to redistrict Congress comes up. Well, I'll do my best to remind, anyway.
Despite these bad numbers, there were still 31,000 applicants. So, we should expect to see a decently representative first cut as the auditor's office does the work to balance things out. But if you applied, and you are a Latino female? Well, expect a call.
In the end, my best guess of how this works is that we'll get a map that is perhaps a bit more "blockish", but still producing similar numbers of similarly partisan Republicans and Democrats. At heart, Prop 11 misses the simple truth that we have self-sorted over the past 50 years. There's no way to draw a competitive seat in SF or in far Northeastern California. Just isn't, no matter how dedicated these people are.
So, maybe we'll get a map, maybe we'll just go back to the judges. Either way, not a whole lot changes, and the state is pout $5 million or so. Sounds like a great plan guys, can't we emulate this everywhere!
One of the reasons that many minority groups opposed Prop 11 in 2008 was because they worried that minority voices would not be heard. The Prop 11 folks offered many reasons why that wouldn't be the case, yet when you peruse the numbers, there's not much to be encouraged about there. Some things that jump out:
* White men are vastly over-represented. Despite the fact that white men represent less than 25% of California, they are over 50% of the pool of qualified applicants. 52.3% to be precise.
* Republicans are also over-represented. They're nearly 40% of the qualified applicants. Far more than Democrats, despite the registration advantage for Democrats
* Asians, Latinos and African-Americans are also under represented.
This panel is going to end up to be very expensive and be unrepresentative of the state as a whole. Yet, we are stuck with this system until we can repeal it. So, for the time being we need to make sure that we bring a robust and diverse mix of progressives into the application pool. The process for applying is relatively simple, but many activists will find they are disqualified. So, find some progressive friends, and make them apply.
The Deadline has been extended to February 16. That's ONE WEEK from today!
Here's the application site. Go there now, and tell all of your friends to go there. We desperately need more progressives on this panel. And hey Greens, how about it? Apply, it'll be a blast!
(I wrote about this last week, but moving beyond partisanship, this is important. I would argue that we should be looking for progressives to fill those non-partisan seats, and maybe even a centrist Republican for those seats. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Drawing our legislative districts used to be the job of elected officials, but now it's up to YOU. That's because of a voter-approved measure last year that called for the creation of a new Citizens Redistricting Commission. Last Thursday, the State Auditor launched a new website for the effort: http://WeDrawTheLines.ca.gov.
It's absolutely critical that pro-LGBT citizens apply for the commission to ensure that the new boundaries are drawn to empower our community--not gerrymandered to divide us.
In a stunning but not too surprising revelation, Josh Richman of the Oakland Tribune is reporting that Don Perata transferred $1.5 million from his PAC to his legal defense fund - one day after the election. Instead of using that money to help defeat Prop 11, which narrowly won, or to help elect more Democrats to the state senate - such as Hannah-Beth Jackson, who lost by 1,200 votes - he took it for himself, leaving California Democrats and the state itself worse off.
Contributors to Don Perata's political action committee this year might have thought their money would bankroll the attempted recall of state Sen. Jeff Denham or opposition to a legislative redistricting reform measure.
But one day after Election Day and with only a few weeks left as state Senate President Pro Tem, the Oakland Democrat moved $1.5 million from Leadership California into his own legal defense fund, formed to counter a years-long FBI corruption probe.
This sum dwarfs the California Democratic Party's $450,000 contribution to Perata's legal fund over the past year, which had caused an outcry from some party activists. It also dwarfs the $555,000 Perata had moved from his Taxpayers for Perata committee - ostensibly created for a 2010 Board of Equalization run - into his legal defense fund in several chunks since 2005.
The transferred amount is more than the entire $1.4 million the committee had raised in this year's first nine months, and more than half of the $2.7 million it had on hand as of Sept. 30.
Jason Kinney, Perata's spokesman, is quoted as saying there was nothing illegal here. Even if that is true, it's beside the point - $1.5 million is a huge sum of money that should have been spent on winning the 2008 election, not pocketed by a termed-out legislator.
Our own David Dayen is quoted in the article making that very point with forceful eloquence:
David Dayen, an elected Democratic State Central Committee member from Santa Monica, blogged angrily this summer about his party's contribution to Perata's legal defense fund, contending the money would've been better spent on legislative races. The same goes for Leadership California's money, he said Wednesday; despite a Democratic presidential candidate carrying California by the largest margin since 1936, Democrats netted only three more Assembly seats and none in the state Senate.
"Every time I asked the California Democratic Party about getting more active and involved in local elections, they said the state Senate and the Assembly control those races ... and we don't have a lot of flexibility. So Perata, at that time, and Nunez or Bass had the authority to run those elections," Dayen said. "Now we see what happens when you vest power in these closed loops - suddenly self-interest becomes more important than the good of the party."
He believes this is why Perata didn't step aside as Pro Tem earlier, as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez relinquished his post to Karen Bass in May: "Darrell Steinberg was sitting there ready to go ... and we were all like, 'What the hell is going on?'
"We speculated it had to be that he still needed the leverage to make the calls to raise money for himself."
David makes a key point here - this is not just about how Perata screwed California Democrats. It's about what he called "closed loops" and a party leadership hostile to open accounting. This should become a rallying cry for all Democrats to demand more accountability from their leaders, and a greater commitment to winning elections as opposed to pocketing those funds for your own uses.
Many in the Democratic grassroots, including a large number of CDP delegates, want to build a better, more successful party, using the disappointing results on the state level as a motivating force to produce change. That is made easier by Perata's long overdue exit from the Legislature. But this should serve as a wake-up call for the CDP as a whole, which must take a strong stand against this kind of action and take whatever steps are within their power to prevent it from happening again.
Prop 11 is a solution in search of a problem - and a bad solution at that. At a time when our state's budget crisis ought to remind us that the real problem is the ridiculous 2/3 rule, Broderist columnists like the LA Times' George Skelton are trying to put in one last pitch for Prop 11.
In doing so all they accomplish is highlighting the absurdity of their proposal and their cynical approach to politics - assuming that California voters are animated by blind rage and a desire to smash a broken government instead of thinking intelligently about how to fix it.
The interesting thing is that Skelton doesn't even attempt his usual efforts to argue why Prop 11 is needed. The "competitive elections" argument has been proved false by the six or seven competitive races in the Assembly, most of them in districts drawn to favor Republicans. Nor does Skelton attempt to say Prop 11 will solve the budget deficit. He merely assumes it to be a good idea.
Skelton lists "good government" organizations like Common Cause and LWV to suggest that Prop 11 isn't a Republican power grab - never mind the fact that Arnold and other right-wingers are dumping money into it. Nowhere does he explain the real purpose here: to keep Democrats away from a 2/3 majority in the Legislature.
He also gets the details wrong, claiming:
Under the proposal, any frequent voter could apply to be a redistricting commissioner -- as long as the person had no political connections. Prop. 11 drafters really wanted to ensure that commissioners had no partisan agendas.
But as Brian pointed out last night a drafting error excludes frequent voters. This vaunted "independent commission" will include infrequent and uninformed voters - which is fitting given that this proposal speaks primarily to such an audience.
• Whoops! The drafters of Prop 11 have seemingly barred anyone who has voted in the last three elections from serving on the 14-member commission. It seems they left out the words "at least" when requiring potential members to have voted in the last three general elections. From Rick Hasen's Election law blog:
I was struck when I read this in the text of the new law about qualifications to be on the citizen redistricting commission: "Each commission member shall have voted in two of the last three statewide general elections immediately preceding his or her application."
By its plain text, this sentence seems to disqualify from the commission voters who voted in all three of the last statewide general elections. An apparent drafting error, or at least an ambiguity, that could have been avoided by adding the words "at least" before "two."
• Michael Rubenstein is quoted in this article about low-information voters having trouble with all the propositions on the ballot. Which is fine, except that Michael Rubenstein POSTS HERE! Surely you've seen the Calitics endorsements, msrpotus????
• Biotech Execs announce their opposition to Prop 8 in an event in San Diego. Money quote: "Biotechnology companies are supposed to be agile, flexible, creative, innovative and committed to thinking out of the box. All these things don't line up with Proposition 8. They are exactly to the contrary." You might also be interested in ACLU's Executive Directory Anthony Romero's personal story against Prop 8. Or how about UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau saying that "Proposition 8 is in conflict with the principles of equity and inclusion to which our campus is committed."
• A Sacramento judge has paused the statewide algebra exam for eighth graders. The exam was controversial because most eighth graders don't currently take algebra, so far more resources would be necessary for a full algebra program.
• The jury has been selected for "America's (Corrupt) Sheriff", former OC Sheriff Mike Carona.
• Will they or won't they? SDG&E is still deciding whether to cut off customers during fires. It seems that power lines become an agent of fire growth during the fires, but they also help fight fires and get people out of danger. Ah, now there's a rock and a hard place for you...
For years, some Very Serious People have been complaining about how there aren't enough competitive races. And so, the Republicans thought, yeah, we'd like more competitive districts because we're getting our butts kicked in the ones we helped draw after the 2000 census. The goo-goo groups (good government) saw a chance to get some additional street cred and, more importantly, additional leverage.
I've got plenty of respect for the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, but they have the most power when there are a bunch of moderates in the legislature. I know, they would never think that they are, in fact, an interest group in their own right, but, folks they are. They are a special interest just like any other. They do what maximizes their own interests.
Arnold then saw an opportunity in Prop 11, he could also expand his own power and gravitas. Arnold was able to cobble a semi-respectable coalition for the proposition including a few more Republicans and a few poorly informed Democrats. (Bob Hertzberg? Really, dude? You drew the damn maps that they are so upset about.) They then got all the Very Serious People aboard with a somewhat specious argument that Prop 11 would bring in more moderates and make elections more competitive.
The problem with all of this? We didn't actually need any of this for competive elections. They are here, up close in person in 2008. I suppose the trouble is that the Very Serious People weren't expecting all these Republican seats to become competitive. You see, they wanted the Democratic seats to become competitive too (or in the case of some, the Democratic seats only). But, like it or not, competition is here:
Democrats will have a rare opportunity in next week's general election to capture a few seats in the state Legislature, which would help them inch toward a two-thirds majority, a vote threshold needed to approve a state budget or a tax measure.
State legislative seats switching hands between parties is extremely rare in California - it hasn't happened since the legislative district lines were redrawn in the beginning of the decade. Democrats are hoping to buck that trend with increased Democratic voter registration fueled by the popularity of presidential hopeful Barack Obama. (SF Chron 10/28/08)
Never mind that Matthew Yi chose to acknowledge only three seats Democrats can take from Republicans, ignoring AD-26, AD-15 notably. The long and short of it is that these competitive races undermine the entire argument for Prop 11, that only a different mapping system can provide competitive elections. Nope, not true, and Prop 11 couldn't even do anything to actually create any competitive districts.
Prop 11 is a phony solution in search of a phony problem. Vote No, we don't need to give Republicans additional power to satisfy these Very Serious People.
I will be on KRXA 540 AM at 8 this morning to discuss this and other California politics issues
In today's column lambasting state politicians for the budget crisis George Skelton makes a rather startling and, to me, clearly inaccurate claim. After bashing Arnold and the legislature's leaders for not calling an immediate special session to deal with the budget deficit he uses the situation to argue for Prop 11:
Predictably, the Capitol's record 85-day tardiness in producing a state budget is not an issue in any competitive legislative race this fall.
That's because -- despite the national political drama, and rock-bottom public approval rating of the Legislature -- there are very few competitive legislative races. Blame the Legislature's gerrymandering of districts to make them safe for incumbents and their parties. No incumbent is in a tight race. No lawmaker is being held accountable for legislative fiscal irresponsibility.
It's an argument for Proposition 11, a ballot measure sponsored by good government groups that would take redistricting away from the Legislature and hand it to an independent commission.
That is simply not true. California is FULL of competitive legislative races this fall. Look at the assembly, where as David Dayen explained yesterday there are competitive seats all over the place. You've got Alyson Huber in AD-10, Joan Buchanan in AD-15, John Eisenhut in AD-26, Fran Florez in AD-30, Ferial Masry in AD-37, Marty Block in AD-78, and Manuel Perez in AD-80 all with a very good chance of winning seats currently held by Republicans or in a competitive race with Republicans.
I don't know how George Skelton can claim that there are no competitive legislative races this year. It is an untrue statement and he's doing his readers a disservice by saying there aren't any. He's so fixated on Prop 11, a pointless reform in search of a problem, that he is blind to the political earthquake that's about to take place.
Skelton is also wrong that the budget isn't an issue in these races. True, it does not seem to dominate the campaigns, but it is instead enfolded into a broader public unease with Republicans when it comes to the economy. California's economy badly needs stimulus and increased government spending, not slash-and-burn like Republicans propose. Barack Obama at last night's debate dramatically undercut Republican demands for across the board spending cuts, pointing out that's not what you do in a severe recession, and Californians are smart enough to connect that to our own Republican caucus.
California voters understand full well what is responsible for the budget crisis. Skelton wants us to believe it's because all legislators regardless of party are either incompetent or scared to face the truth. Never mind the fact that it is foolish to hold a special session while you're trying to sell revenue anticipation notes - Californians are demonstrating that they clearly understand this is the Republicans' fault.
By forcing a three month budget delay and demanding spending cuts at the worst possible time, Republicans have shown to Californians that they are irresponsible and not to be trusted with power over California's basic services and with its tax revenue.
Prop. 11 is a sideshow. It's time for California's media to pay attention to the main event - numerous competitive elections across the state that will put 2/3 in our grasp. Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Skelton?!
Just in case you weren't quite sure on Prop 11, the Republican Voters First redistricting measure, you can be now. This measure is a right-wing initiative to help the GOP in whatever quixotic way that they think it can. The proof? How about a fundraiser with a right-wing Lt. Gov. from Texas?
At least a couple years ago, maybe longer, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst hosted California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for a cozy fundraiser at an Austin hotel. The California ceo had done, or was going to do, the same for Dewhurst in the Golden State.
Well, Arnold's going to be back Thursday and you're invited.
In case you wanted the embossed invitation, you can find it here. BUt you'll need to do the embossing.
Just for the record, Dewhurst is no post-partisan. As a long-time Texan, I can assure you that this guy is pretty darn right-wing. But, Arnold really isn't that far from him, and loves the cash for his ridiculous waste of time redistricting measure. That's our Arnold, putting Republicans first.
I generally like George Skelton. I mean, he's very Broder-esque, but he's fairly reasonable. But he so badly misses the mark on his column on Prop 11, and smears current legislators in the process. I mean, that's a little like shooting fish in a barrel isn't it? Just a bit too easy, especially when you stretch the truth.
After a little bit of name-calling, "Orwellian campaign" and all that, Skelton "cuts to the chase"
Let's cut to the chase:
* If you believe that legislators should be held accountable at election time and face more than token opposition, Prop. 11 is a must. If you're thinking that Sacramento requires some reforming to become more responsive to California's needs, here's an excellent place to start.
* Conversely, if you believe that Sacramento is cruising along just fine and doesn't need much tinkering, vote against Prop. 11. But then you'd probably have been living in a coma. (LAT 10/9/08)
Except Skelton doesn't mention that he could sit on his ivory tower there without ever coming up with a way to actually make any more than a handful of districts competitive. It's the ridiculous lie that the proponents of Prop 11 are using. Californians have self-sorted to such a degree that any district that would be competitive would look like ridiculous and meld people who have no similarities together.
If you are going to cut to the chase, shouldn't the chase be something that the measure actually accomplishes?
Oh, and the measure gives Republicans far more power than they've earned at the ballot box. That's reason enough to reject it. No on 11.
The SacBee is reporting that Paul Singer, the funder behind the Dirty Tricks to change the way California allocates its electoral votes, is back. This time he's funding Prop 11. Just in case you needed more evidence that this is just another Dirty Trick:
Remember Paul Singer? He was the mystery GOP donor who funneled $175,000 through a newly formed organization in Missouri last year to the failed ballot measure to scrap the winner-take-all Electoral College system in California.
* * *
Well, Singer has returned to the state's campaign filings, donating $25,000 this weekend to pass Proposition 11, the redistricting measure on the November ballot spearheaded by good government groups like California Common Cause and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.(SacBee 10/7/08)
In other Prop 11 news, La Opinion, the Spanish language newspaper of record, has come out strongly against the Republican Voters First Initiative. (English version here, Spanish here). Among other problems, they find it doesn't protect fair representation for Latinos.
Proposition 11 does not guarantee diversity nor does it depoliticize the process, as proponents contend. The initiative reflects justified frustration with the current system in Sacramento. While the measure hopes to improve upon current practice, it fails to provide enough safeguards.
The problem is that the initiative could have a negative impact on fair political representation for Latinos. This is reason enough to reject Proposition 11.
These redistricting measures are always tight, but in our long history with these things, they seem to slip at the last minute. We'll see how this one comes along in the last 4 weeks.
Here we go again, another round of endorsements. The bulk of these will be fairly uncontroversial here. On Prop 7, Brian Leubitz did not vote due to the fact that he works for the campaign. See the flip for more information on our positions.
With a kind hat tip to Shane at CapitolAlert, we have some new data from SurveyUSA on a few of the propositions. Keep in mind that I'm not in love with the data from SurveyUSA, and proposition numbers can be particularly volitile. So, here they are.
For the good news, we see Prop 8 trailing, and Prop 2 leading. That 62 point lead for Prop 2 is actually quite staggering. It's rare to see such agreement on any issue, let alone one that has been blocked by big farming interests for so long. Other polls have showed 8 trailing more substantially, but this again confirms what we've been seeing.
On the not so good side, we have Prop 4. While we've beaten this twice before, it's been close both times. And there's nothing in this version that is any better than Props 73 or 85. One hope is that the turnout model that S-USA used for this poll has under counted youth voters. And that may be true for many of these polla, but a lot of work will (and $) will need to go to Prop 4 if we are to beat this once again.
Finally, Prop 11. Oh Prop 11, does anybody have a clue what you are? Not so much, as almost 50% of voters are undecided. I'd expect there to be a bunch of voting-day decisions on this one as many voters just don't have the time to analyze these things.
By the way, NO ON 11! It's fake reform opposed by minority organizations and labor that simply gives too much to Republicans that haven't earned it at the ballot box. Just in case you haven't heard that enough around here...
Drawing our legislative districts used to be the job of elected officials, but now it's up to YOU. That's because of a voter-approved measure last year that called for the creation of a new Citizens Redistricting Commission. Last Thursday, the State Auditor launched a new website for the effort: