Redistricting Watch: WaPo on Prop 77

The Washington Post editorial board praises last week's California Supreme Court decision to put Governor Schwarzenegger's redistricting reform proposal back on the ballot for this fall, saying "If passed, it would replace the state's corrupt system for drawing state and federal legislative districts with a cleaner one in which a panel of retired judges - rather than the very politicians who have to run for office - would draw lines without regard for protecting incumbents. By passing it, California voters not only would clean up their up own system but could spur reform elsewhere as well."

As I did (here), the Post takes issue with part of redistricting plan (the mid-decade redrafting it allows), but admits "warts and all, passing the initiative would be a huge accomplishment."

Here's the rest of the Post piece:

"The advent of high-powered computing has made the old art of gerrymandering into a corruptly exact science. The result is that ever-more seats in state legislatures and in the House of Representatives have become safe for one party or the other. Many House elections are no longer even contested, so remote is the possibility of unseating an incumbent. In California's last election, as Mr. Schwarzenegger noted in a speech earlier this year, not a single one of 153 state or federal legislative seats changed party hands. "What kind of democracy is that?" the governor memorably asked.

The simple truth is that, as it's too often practiced in America, redistricting weakens two-party democracy and restricts all significant voter choice to primary elections within a district's dominant party. This, in turn, contributes to the polarization of the broader political system, as politicians of both parties attend more to keeping their flanks happy than to satisfying centrist voters or to reaching out to voters of the opposite party. For the largest state in the nation to declare this situation undemocratic and unacceptable and to demand instead that district lines get drawn as apolitically as possible would be an enormous step forward" [emphases added].

The Post has it right on this one. While the CA proposal isn't perfect, it's better than the status quo, and I hope that it's widely supported. As I noted in "Updates from the States," there are a few movements in other states as well to wrest control of redistricting away from the politicians and allow fairness and indepedence a role in the process. We've only just begun!

Previous Redistricting Watch posts:
- "Prop 77 Back On" (8/12)
- "Updates from the States" (8/10)
- "Updates on Several Fronts" (7/28)
- "Cosponsors Update" (7/22)
- "How Exactly do you Gerrymander a Birthday Cake?" (7/20)
- "Happy Birthday Mr. Gerry" (7/19)
- "Federal Authority in Historical Perspective" (7/16)
- "Blue Dogs, on the Scent" (7/12)
- "Cosponsors Update" (7/1)
- "Links, News, and Views" (6/24)
- "Polarization & Collegiality" (6/24)
- "Centrist Action on Redistricting Reform" (6/23)