To combat the politically motivated gerrymandering that split
South County into three congressional districts, local Republicans
are supporting a new Assembly bill that would alter the state
constitution and take legislative redistricting away from elected
officials and give it to a bipartisan panel of retired judges.
To combat the politically motivated gerrymandering that split South County into three congressional districts, local Republicans are supporting a new Assembly bill that would alter the state constitution and take legislative redistricting away from elected officials and give it to a bipartisan panel of retired judges.
If that doesn’t work they’re prepared to back a ballot initiative sponsored by the group that put Proposition 13 on the ballot and spearheaded the recall effort against former Gov. Gray Davis. Democrats, who hold significant majorities in both the Assembly and the Senate, have labeled the bill and the ballot measure “a power grab” and say the state has better ways to spend its money.
The resdistricting also would affect the state Senate and Asembly.
“There are some areas open for discussion, some room for improvement, but you have to look at the cost of doing it,” Simón Salinas, D-Salinas, said Friday. “It will cost us $79 million. That money could do a lot of good. Do we really want to spend it on a special election when the voters just voted in November? It’s a power grab. Judges don’t live in a vacuum, they have their own political philosophies.”
Estimates for a special election are between $50 million and $80 million, plus costs to redraw the lines and costs to Registrars of Voters in counties around the state.
Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who now represents Morgan Hill and San Martin, said he thinks something must be done but worries that redistricting now could make things worse.
“There could and should be a fair method but this is not it,” Laird said Monday. “There are problems with doing it now. There was a huge fight in (the Legislature) 2001, based on population estimates. There hasn’t been a census since then – California grew 13 percent in the decade before. Unless we are willing to do a new census (half way through the decade), I don’t have much hope.”
Changing the constitution requires a super-majority in both legislative chambers and must be approved by the voters in a special election. Proponents of the bill, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, say the change is needed to level the playing field for both parties. Last year incumbents retained all of the 153 Assembly, Senate and congressional seats up for grabs in the state.
Many attribute that to the redistricting that took place after 2000 census that turned legislative maps of California that had resembled child’s puzzles into works of Abstract Expressionism.
Salinas’ district stretches from Milpitas to the southern edge of Monterey County but doesn’t include Morgan Hill or San Martin, which are represented by Laird. The 30-minute drive from Hollister to Morgan Hill passes through four congressional districts, and rookie State Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, represents a district that ranges from Santa Maria to Los Gatos, bypassing Gilroy and San Martin, but including Morgan Hill.
“It’s such a long and huge district that when I told friends two years ago I might run for a seat that includes Saratoga they thought I was crazy,” Maldonado said. “Politicians drawing lines for politicians doesn’t work. It’s like having a coyote build a chicken coop.”
California reassesses its 173 legislative and congressional districts after every census, redrawing boundaries and shifting representatives’ areas according to population changes nationwide. A state Senate committee collects public opinion and draws the lines, then presents the new maps to the Legislature for approval. Salinas, who previously represented Morgan Hill and San Martin, voted for the current districts; Laird was not yet in the Legislature.
The bill introduced by Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Bakersfield, would hand the job to a bi-partisan panel of five judges. The judges would be selected from a list of 25 candidates put forth by the California Judicial Council, an organization that vets judicial applicants and grades members of the bench. The two highest-ranking members of each party will have the right to strike one name each from the list. The clerk of the assembly will then pick a panel comprising two Republicans, two Democrats and one independent.
To be eligible, a retired judge has not to have been a political appointee, not have recently changed party registration and must promise not to run for office for a still undetermined amount of time.
“No other of the 49 states uses that system,” Laird said. “In California, a majority of retired judges are older, white, male and were appointed by Republicans. With diversity in California being a major issue in redistricting, it (the panel of judges) doesn’t seem like a fair process.”
Where possible, the districts will be “nested,” with each Senate district overlapping two Assembly districts.
Maldonado’s district currently spans seven, but still doesn’t match the congressional district of Democratic Congresswoman Lois Capps, who represents a swath of land that reaches 200 miles from Monterey County all the way to Oxnard and is rarely more than five miles wide.
Congressman Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, who represents Morgan Hill and part of San Martin, has a similarly convoluted district, running in no straight line, from Lodi to Stockton and only reaching across to Morgan Hill to pick up enough voters to fill out the district. His district Danville in Contra Costa County.
Many Morgan Hill voters and the City Council were unhappy with being severed from their previous district. Before they were grouped with populations of similar social and economic interests. Now they find themselves with Central Valley agricultural and more conservative interests.
The council joined several other similarly distressed cities in suing the state for relief but, one-by-one, each lawsuit was dismissed.
Congressman Jeff Denham, R-Salinas, acts for Hollister and San Benito County. His district reaches from Modesto, to Madera to King City and San Juan Bautista and covers four counties.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage said Friday that the districts make his job harder because he has to deal with multiple representatives on local issues. He said that cutting Morgan Hill out of Salinas’ district was a way to discourage Gage, a Republican who is well-known in South County, from challenging Salinas for the seat.
“There’s no common sense to what they’re doing,” Gage said. They just gerrymander to make sure their representatives get re-elected. They ought to do it without the party in mind because it just doesn’t work.”
San Martin, with 5,600 people, is represented by two members of Congress. Sylvia Hamilton, president of the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance and chairwoman of the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group, said she didn’t know until just a few months ago that parts of San Martin are in U.S. Representative Richard Pombo’s district. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, also represents San Martin. Gilroy is represented by Mike Honda, D-Campbell.
“This last redistricting is very confusing,” Hamilton said. “It’s been a mess. We have a lot more in common with Morgan Hill and Gilroy than we do with Los Gatos.”
State Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose, said that geography doesn’t make it any harder or easier to communicate with her 900,000 constituents. She said any change to the process should be put off until after the next census.
“I haven’t read the bill or seen the initiative, but my immediate reaction is that this should not be a front-burner issue when the state still faces a multi-billion dollar deficit,” said Alquist, who represents Gilroy. “I think it’s waste of taxpayer money to do reapportionment in five years when we’ll do it again after the next census.”
Democrats control 48 of the 80 Assembly seats and 25 of 40 in the Senate. Maldonado said the Assembly bill likely won’t succeed, but he has hope for the initiative that may appear on November’s ballot.
“There’s not an appetite in the legislature to do that, but this will go forward through the voters,” he said. “I don’t know why anyone would show resistance to impartial judges drawing lines.”
The initiative is sponsored by People’s Advocate, the Sacramento outfit that has sponsored a number of controversial initiatives since the measure that caps California’s property taxes was passed in 1978, including an initiative to make English the state’s official language.
Ted Costa, president of People’s Advocate, said that 1,000 volunteers will be out next week collecting the 750,000 signatures needed to get the proposal on the ballot. He said that redistricting is partisan in nature but won’t be if taken away from elected officials.
“Fair redistricting won’t give an advantage to either party,” Costa said. “Both parties will have a chance at putting their platforms before the people and seeing which platform the voters choose.”
“That’s a weak argument,” Laird said. “No other of the 49 states uses that system.”
