One of the ironies of Arnold Schwarzenegger's time as governor of California is how he has failed to do some seemingly simple things – like balance the state budget – while at the same time tackling some of the most complex and arcane issues in government.
Early in his first term, Schwarzenegger built public support for fixing flaws in the workers compensation system, the obscure insurance program for people injured on the job. Later, he led a campaign for massive new investment in the state's crumbling infrastructure. And he came within a few votes of passing a top-to-bottom overhaul of the health care industry in an effort to expand access to care for the uninsured.
Now the governor seems set to add one more item to that list. The final votes are still being counted, but Californians appear to have passed Proposition 11, which creates an independent commission to redraw political district boundaries every 10 years after the U.S. census. While the campaign was a group effort, Schwarzenegger deserves credit for focusing on this issue in his first run for governor, then sticking with it until the public finally understood what was at stake.
To people who follow politics closely, this was an easy call. It is a fundamental conflict of interest for legislators to draw the lines for the districts in which they and their fellow politicians will run for office.
Using voter databases, election results and other data, lawmakers have been able to draw lines that make it easy to predict results years in advance.
The lines are like the rules of the game, dictating everything that happens in politics and government.
But to casual observers of politics, "redistricting," as the process is known, was inside baseball, either too boring or too complicated to worry much about. Which meant that when they were asked to change the system – five times before Proposition 11 came along – voters were vulnerable to misleading advertising campaigns paid for by politicians and their interest-group allies who would say anything to preserve the status quo.
Schwarzenegger discovered this in 2005, the first time he tried to take the job of drawing district lines away from the Legislature. Lawmakers opposed to his proposal raised the specter of former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, who had manipulated district lines to give Republicans control of his state's congressional delegation. The independent commission proposed in California would be the best protection against politicians rigging the lines the way DeLay had done, but that didn't stop the politicians from citing the Texas example to confuse voters.
That ballot measure – Proposition 77 – failed, along with the rest of the agenda Schwarzenegger was pushing that year. But the governor never gave up. He prodded Democratic leaders to make good on their promise to support an independent commission done, in their view, the right way. And when the Democratic legislators reneged on their pledge, Schwarzenegger aligned himself with a broad-based, bipartisan coalition of reform groups and individuals behind Proposition 11.
Once again, the opponents lied about the measure. They claimed it was a partisan power grab, but they somehow managed to suggest to Democrats that it was a Republican grab while telling Republicans that the proposal would benefit Democrats. And they argued that it would hurt minorities, even though the first requirement of the measure is that the new districts comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, which was written to protect ethnic minority rights in elections.
This time, though, the lies did not work. While absentee ballots are still being counted, Proposition 11 appears to have a wide enough margin to prevail.
Will it change the world? No. But it will be an important step forward. Legislative leaders will no longer be able to dangle favorable districts, or threaten unfavorable lines, to pressure lawmakers into voting one way or another on legislation. They won't be able to draw lines to favor a particular politician over another, or to reward or punish one party at the expense of another.
Fair districts should also result in at least a handful of more competitive elections. In those districts, candidates will have to appeal across party lines rather than cater only to the highly partisan voters who turn out in the party primaries. While there is no guarantee that this change will produce better legislators, it should at least bring in a different kind of legislator, and that ideological diversity will be good for the state.
Most importantly, the passage of Proposition 11 proves that voters get it, that they are paying attention to the dysfunction in the Capitol and are open to proposals that would help correct it.
The victory should pave the way for a new campaign to create open primaries, which would allow voters to choose candidates for public office without regard to party registration. Unlike Proposition 11, open primaries would dramatically change politics in California, which is why the idea will be opposed even more strenuously by the powers that be.
And that makes it an idea even more worth fighting for.
Call The Bee's Daniel Weintraub, (916) 321-1914.
