Capitol Alert

There's a lively debate going on at the new Fox and Hounds blog about the future chances of the redistricting measure on the November ballot.

Dan Weintraub keyed into this debate earlier this week, but the contributors to the site have kept it going.

The first shot was fired by Joe Matthews, the Los Angeles Times reporter turned New America Foundation fellow.

His headline says it all: "Redistricting doomed to failure."

"Here are some immutable truths about California. The sun sets gloriously in the West. The Clippers lose more games than they win. And redistricting ballot initiatives fail," Matthews predicted.

He said the measure was doomed once the Democratic Party opposed it.

"To have any chance at succeeding, a redistricting initiative needs more than bipartisan support. It needs partisan acquiescence. And this measure doesn't have that," he wrote.

Joel Fox, the chief proprietor of the site and president of the Small Business Action Committee, made a counter argument, saying "there are enough differences" between this campaign and past failures.

"The campaign for the initiative won't seem as partisan as some Democratic Party leaders will try to make it. A number of groups that often align themselves with the Democrats have endorsed this initiative. So have some visible Democratic politicians such as Steve Westly, and I don't think he will be the only one," Fox wrote.

"Joe Mathews is wrong," chimed in Tony Quinn, the political analyst who works for the California Target Book. That's the book that analyzes competitive races in the state.

While Quinn acknowledges the last nine attempts to change how California draws its political maps have failed, proponents can win if they succeed "in convincing the public that it has true bipartisan support and increases choice in elections."

"This initiative is advantaged by being on a high turnout general election ballot. The partisan Democrats Mathews thinks will kill the measure come out in droves in low turnout primaries, but their votes are diluted in a high turnout election that includes independents and less ideological voters," Quinn points out.

Plus, he writes, "if proponents can tap into voter distemper, they can make even an obscure topic like redistricting an attack on the privileges of the political class."

"If...if...if," responded Matthews.

"Recently, I've begun diagnosing a California disease called Redistricting Fantasy Syndrome," he wrote, tongue-in-cheek. "Most of the population doesn't know enough about redistricting to be susceptible to the disease. But in certain elite precincts, RFS has become a minor epidemic, striking down otherwise sensible moderate "goo goos" who persist in the belief that good process is good for you."

He went on to concede, "I hope Tony's right and redistricting passes. It potentially could make a small improvement in the state's politics."

But he remains bearish on its chances: "The success scenarios he offers are preposterous."

Quinn has commented back saying Matthews is "pretty much like the stopped clock that's right twice a day."

"This may be his hour," Quinn wrote. "If the politics of the past is prologue, he is right -- it will lose."

But Quinn sees a difference in the political climate.

"The electorate is angry, dissatisfied and open to doing very odd things," he wrote. "As I sit waiting for the Clinton-Giuliani presidential debate that will never be, I am reminded how wrong the conventional political wisdom has been."

The debate, it seems, will continue through November.