April 18, 2007

Nunez on redistricting

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez's redistricting proposal is intriguing, to say the least. He wants to strip the Legislature of its authority to draw district lines and give that power to the Little Hoover Commission.

Kudos to the speaker for a) offering a proposal and b) including congressional districts in the mix. With him at the table, if he is there in good faith, there is a decent chance of a true reform coming out of this process.

Unfortunately, his idea for using the Little Hoover Commission does not really pass the test of "independence." The commission is highly respected for the work it now does as a government watchdog. But that does not mean it would make a good choice for this job.

All of the members of the commission are appointed by the governor and by legislative leaders. And since there's no ban on ex-parte communications, there would be nothing to stop the legislators and the governor from appointing members specifically for the line-drawing and then weighing in, if not controlling, the outcome. If Núñez had suggested a commission made up of appointees of the Legislature and the governor but not called "Little Hoover," most reformers would have considered that a non-starter. The only reason his idea will even get consideration from folks who have been pushing for independent redistricting is that he is tying it to a commission that already has a good reputation. But there is no guarantee that the people who would draw the lines would be the same people who have done such a good job pointing out waste and inefficiencies in state government.

The next question is what criteria the commission would use. After the usual one-man, one-vote rule, and the federal Voting Rights Act, the speaker's proposal says that the districts must first be geographically contiguous, then must represent communities of interest, and then must respect city and county boundaries and geographic boundaries to the extent practicable. Finally, it says the districts shall be "reasonably geographically compact."

The criteria are not ranked, but their rank is implied by the order in which they are listed.

This is a potential problem.

The definition of "communities of interest" includes "social, cultural, ethnic, geographic or economic interests."

By placing this standard above existing city and county boundaries, the proposal suggests that it would be fine to split a city several times in order to keep voters together by ethnic group or cultural ties. That's a bad idea. Remember, the Voting Rights Act already prohibits any action that would infringe on the right of minorities to be represented by someone reflecting their race or ethnicity. Why also draw district lines that group voters by ethnicity? Shouldn't we be moving away from state policies that seek to herd people together by skin color or nation of origin, and toward policies that bring together people of different backgrounds and beliefs?

Just as you wouldn't draw a district to include mostly Jews, or mostly Catholics, neither should you draw one that includes mostly Asians, blacks or Latinos.

Having said all that, I'm still not sure whether this proposal would be better or worse than the status quo. I'm inclined to think worse. Because if the commission is not really independent but is filled with people who have ties to legislators and the governor, then those people are going to be receptive to pressures from those parties. And if that pressure leads to a poorly drafted plan, the Legislature will be insulated from criticism over it because their fingerprints would be absent. It would be better to continue to hold them accountable, and to hold out for a truly independent commission.

Posted by dweintraub on April 18, 2007 1:07 PM