California Insider

Ted Costa and Peoples Advocate, sponsors of the Davis Recall, today unveiled a proposed ballot measure to change the way political district lines are drawn. Costa's plan would allow legislative leaders to appoint 20 Californians to a pool from which the Judicial Council would select three special masters to make the decision. The masters would choose a plan from among those submitted by lawmakers and citizens groups. The choice would then go back to the Legislature for ratification and, finally, to a vote of the people. Costa hopes to qualify the measure for the November, 2004 ballot. If approved by the voters, the plan would take effect immediately, meaning that new districts would go into effect for the 2006 elections, even as voters had before them the question of whether they approve of those districts.

David Drucker at the Daily Bulletin in this story spots a point I overlooked in Legislative Analyst Liz Hill's budget analysis: she restates and clarifies her longheld position that Davis overstated the size of the shortfall. It was never $38 billion, Hill says, but more like $30 billion. The difference was in spending, not required by law, that Davis would have wanted to do but couldn't because of tough times. The guv listed those priorities, said we couldn't do them and then counted them as budget cuts, inflating both the size of the problem and the portion of his solution that came from spending reductions rather than tax increases. Hill does agree with the Davis folks that the current operating shortfall remains in the $10 billion range.