Posted on 04/15/2005 9:00:34 AM PDT by calcowgirl
SACRAMENTO -- A panel of experts cast doubt Thursday on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to redraw legislative and congressional districts for the 2006 elections, questioning if there would be time to do it, if it would be constitutional -- even if it would produce the competitive seats he says he seeks.
"It's very hard to define what a competitive district is and if it would be competitive throughout a decade," said Morgan Kousser, professor of history and social science at the California Institute of Technology.
Schwarzenegger is backing legislation and a ballot initiative that would take the power to draw districts away from the Legislature and give it to a panel of retired judges, who would draw new lines as soon as the 2006 elections.
The Republican governor says it's a conflict of interest for lawmakers to draw their own districts and that few of the current seats are competitive enough to be won by either major party.
But Democrats, while saying they're willing to consider a redistricting commission, see Schwarzenegger's push for a mid-decade redistricting as an effort to elect more Republicans.
The Assembly District Representation Committee, a special panel set up to consider the redistricting issue, held its first hearing Thursday and asked a panel of academics and election experts to discuss the pitfalls of the politically potent process of deciding the makeup of lawmakers' districts.
Assemblyman Mike Villines, a Fresno Republican and the committee's vice chairman, complained that the witnesses were "hand-picked experts" asked to testify by the committee's Democratic majority.
"Every invited guest comes with the unified message that we can't and shouldn't change the current system," he said.
The committee's chairman, Assemblyman Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, said Republican lawmakers had a chance to call their own witnesses but didn't.
The witnesses cited several problems in trying to redraw districts in time for 2006 races, including the fact that the retired judges would most likely have to rely on badly outdated 2000 census figures to draw new districts.
There's a very strict equal-population requirement for congressional districts and an increasingly tough equal-population standard for legislative districts, and efforts to use population projections to update old census totals would probably be shot down in court, said Karin MacDonald, director of a redistricting database at the University of California.
"We definitely have a problem if we're looking to draw (new) lines now," she said.
Steve Bickerstaff, an adjunct professor at the University of Texas law school, said it would be "very, very difficult" and expensive for the state to try to do its own census for a mid-decade redistricting.
Conny McCormack, the Los Angeles County registrar of voters, said it would take "many months" of work for county election officials to draw new precincts and take other steps needed to prepare for an election using new districts.
If Schwarzenegger calls a special election in November to ask voters to adopt his plan, there would only be about a "two-week window" for the ex-judges to draw new districts before a series of deadlines for the June 2006 primary begin to kick in, she added.
Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University and a former state Senate consultant on election issues, said redistricting commissions used by other states have had a mixed record, sometimes producing highly partisan plans and, at least in one case, a plan that produced fewer competitive seats.
He suggested a system in which lawmakers would draw district lines after each new census and a commission, not the governor, would have the power to veto their work.
Francisco Estrada, director of public policy for the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, criticized the districts drawn by lawmakers after the 2000 census, but said that a mid-decade redistricting could weaken minority representation.
Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, said the campaign reform group had endorsed Schwarzenegger's legislation but preferred to wait until after the 2010 census to draw new districts.
Estrada and Feng testified after the panel of experts.
Assembly Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is carrying Schwarzenegger's redistricting legislation, issued a statement criticizing the committee for not taking a vote on the measure.
On the Net: Read the bill, ACA3x, at www.assembly.ca.gov.
Why don't I believe him?
Now THAT'S what we need more of
The experts have a head problem: head in the clouds, head in the sand, head up their butts.
They need to tighten the noose on the legislators, that's for sure.
But with all the criticism of judges, I don't understand why giving them power to draw districts is a good thing.
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