Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reported contributing another $700,000 to help qualify a redistricting measure for the November ballot, bringing his total giving to the measure to $1.26 million.
Schwarzenegger is the largest donor to the campaign so far, which has amassed $2.14 million, largely tapping the Republican governor's own donor network.
The measure, sponsored by California Common Cause, would eliminate state lawmakers' power to draw legislative and Board of Equalization districts. A 14-member “citizens” panel, composed of five Democrats, five Republicans and four declined-to-state members would be charged with drawing those seats.
The power to draw congressional seats would remain in the hands of the Legislature.
The other largest reported donations come from Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix and a Schwarzenegger appointee to the Board of Education, who gave more than $140,000 and The New Majority ($212,000), an Orange County-based GOP moderate group that has backed the governor. The governor has announced that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has donated $250,000 to the cause, though the donation has yet to be reported in campaign filings.
The measure is still gathering signatures and facings troubles doing so, according to Joe Mathews on his Blockbuster Democracy blog, who reports the price per signature is rising from $2 to $2.25.
"The price increase suggests that the redistricting initiative is still seriously short of signatures, and time is running short to get the measure qualified for the November ballot," Mathews reports.
Supporters must gather 694,354 valid signatures (which means more than 1 million total signatures) in the coming weeks to qualify for the Nov. 4 ballot.
Last week, a group of civil-rights organizations, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, came out against the measure, citing fears that the citizens’ commission might not “protect the interests of minority voters.”
Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, is also among the initiative’s opponents. His spokesman, Steve Maviglio, has railed against the measure on his blog, The California Majority Report, as a Republican power grab.
Schwarzenegger has backed a redistricting measure before, in 2005 during his special election. The measure, Proposition 77, went down to defeat.
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