January 17, 2007

Redistricting reform

I moderated a panel this morning on redistricting reform sponsored by the Voices of Reform project. The turnout of panel participants was not encouraging. The organizers invited the four legislative leaders to come or send a representative, to be joined by a person from the governor's office.

Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines attended, as did Cynthia Bryant, a deputy chief of staff for Schwarzenegger. But the speaker never committed to coming or sending anyone, and did neither. A representative of Perata's office had confirmed to attend but did not show up. That left the discussion a bit one-sided.

It was still rather informative, however. Villines and Ackerman both said they were enthusiastic about reform, looking for something that could pass muster with voters, and open to just about anything. They both said the idea of using judges to pick an independent panel is probably dead. Villines said he has had maybe a half dozen conversations with the speaker since November on the subject, and he believes Nunez is sincere about supporting an independent commission. He said they are probably most divided over how big of a role the Legislature should retain. He favors no role, while he said Nunez would like to keep the Legislature involved at some level.

As a final question, I asked all three panelists how they would rate the chances of something passing on this subject in the Legislature this year. Ackerman and Villines both rated it a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Bryant, saying she had to echo her boss's optimism on just about everything, gave it a 10.

The entire discussion is supposed to be webcast on the VOR site soon.

Posted by dweintraub on January 17, 2007 3:53 PM