and even if the governor was elected God, he couldn't change that.' -- Democratic Senate President Pro Tem John Burton
Posted on 10/31/2004 8:01:53 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO – As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigns to put more of his fellow Republicans in the Legislature, he has a big problem: Apparently only a handful of races are competitive.
He is blaming the small battlefield on districts drawn by the Legislature that packed Democratic voters into some districts and Republicans into others, creating safe seats for members of both parties and keeping the status quo.
"It's crazy to think about it – 90 percent of the seats, whatever it is, has already been decided on," Schwarzenegger said at an event last week for a Republican state Senate candidate in the Sacramento area.
"There is no competition. It's like you win your primary and you are home free kind of thing in most of those districts, which is wrong."
Schwarzenegger is talking about putting a measure on the next election ballot that would take the once-a-decade task of reapportionment, done after each census to balance the population in districts, out of the hands of the Legislature.
"I think what we want to do is to have the redistricting done by retired judges that don't have a political stake," he said.
The governor said in his endorsement of Proposition 62 on Tuesday's ballot that the so-called open primary measure is one step toward making the Legislature accountable. If the initiative passes, the two top vote-getters in a primary would go on the November ballot, regardless of party.
"As I said during my campaign," he added, "I support redistricting reform, and I will be challenging the Legislature to put a reform measure on the ballot."
Some Republicans are proposing giving legislators an extension of term limits, currently six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate, in exchange for the Legislature's giving up the power of redistricting.
The man who launched the drive for the recall election that put Schwarzenegger in office, Ted Costa of People's Advocate, thinks the Legislature is unlikely to place a redistricting measure on the ballot.
"It's one thing to compromise on workers' compensation," Costa said. "I have never seen too many compromises on redistricting."
Costa expects to begin gathering signatures soon to place an initiative on the ballot that would give the task of redistricting to a panel of retired judges.
The threat of an initiative helped Schwarzenegger gain earlier legislative victories that enacted workers' compensation reform and repealed a new law giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
But from 1982 to 1990, voters rejected four Republican-backed initiatives that would have taken redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature, including two that would have given the task to retired judges.
"The secret (of persuading voters to approve a redistricting initiative) is a special election, when you can zero in on all the data just on that issue," said Costa.
The elections on Tuesday in the current districts, drawn to reduce competition, are expected to produce little change in the balance of power between the two parties in the Legislature and the California congressional delegation, both dominated by Democrats.
In contrast, districts drawn by the court in the last decade, after former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed lines drawn by a Democrat-controlled Legislature, produced a dramatic change in the 1994 elections.
Republicans picked up eight seats in the Assembly, giving the GOP a bare 41-vote majority in the 80-member house. But under the even-handed court plan, Republicans lost Assembly seats in each of the next three elections.
The publisher of a guide to campaigns, Allan Hoffenblum of the California Target Book, recalls that in 1994 there was a wide potential battlefield: 23 Assembly seats, nine state Senate seats and 17 congressional seats.
When the campaign season started this year, said Hoffenblum, "that was down to zero congressional races, two state Senate races and possibly seven Assembly races. That's called gerrymandering."
Three years ago, Democrats controlling the Legislature and the governor's office took the unusual step of agreeing to a bipartisan plan aimed at preserving the status quo, rather than reducing Republican seats.
Democrats had large majorities in the Legislature and the congressional delegation, and some thought reaching for more would result in watered-down Democratic seats and lawsuits under court decisions that limit gerrymandering.
"The amount of discretion has been dramatically decreasing over the last three redistrictings," said Bill Cavala, an Assembly Democratic redistricting expert.
Senate President Pro Tempore John Burton, D-San Francisco, said earlier this month that the congressional delegation wanted an agreement and Democrats wanted to avoid a GOP referendum asking voters to reject the new lines.
The Senate Republican leader at the time, Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, said the GOP had no money for a referendum and was bluffing. He said Republicans feared big losses if Democrats enacted a partisan plan.
Under one analysis, Brulte said, Republican seats might have dropped from 14 to nine in the 40-member Senate, from 30 to 25 in the 80-member Assembly and from 19 to 15 in the 53-member congressional delegation.
Brulte said Republicans gained seats in the first elections two years ago in the seats drawn under the bipartisan plan, adding two members in the Assembly and one in the Senate.
"We have opportunities to pick up seats in Congress and the Assembly and the Senate," Brulte said last week. "I don't have any regrets."
The Governor would have Calif. be a one party state! All politicians would have to be moderates under this prop 62. Someone needs to pop this baffoon's big head!
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