California Voters FIRST Presents a Balanced and Bipartisan Effort for Redistricting Reform

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Janis R. Hirohama

Speaking for the proponents and strong allies of the California Voters FIRST initiative, I found it perplexing to learn of Speaker Núñez’s apparent opposition to our well-balanced and bipartisan effort to secure a fair redistricting process for California. A diverse group of organizations has been working since 2005 to eliminate the current conflict of interest in the redistricting process and have attempted to do so in cooperation with the Legislature. For the past three years, the Legislature has promised to put a redistricting reform measure on the ballot – and the Speaker himself has been widely quoted as supporting redistricting reform. But at the end of each legislative year, no progress has been made. After three years, it’s clear that real reform is going to require an independent initiative.

This is the environment that prompted us to move forward with our California Voters FIRST initiative. We will continue to qualify our measure for the November 2008 ballot and will conduct an aggressive campaign to see it enacted by voters. We will not be deterred in our efforts to give communities the voice they deserve and end the status quo that brings nothing but partisanship and gridlock to Sacramento.

It is ironic to hear of politicians of both parties claiming that our measure is a “power grab” by the other party. For voters, these baseless claims may be strong evidence that in fact, this IS a power grab, but not the kind the politicians claim. It is a political power grab by voters and concerned Californians from every corner of the state and every political persuasion—and it deserves their support.

The idea of somehow combining an as yet unseen redistricting proposal with a term limit reform proposal appears to be nothing more than an attempt to derail our efforts to enact a fair and nonpartisan redistricting plan. If the Speaker’s support of fair redistricting were an honest effort, we believe he would endorse our initiative and pursue a separate term limit measure.

We have the unique opportunity to provide Californians with a positive, voter-centered alternative that will result in much-needed change in all aspects of the redistricting process. California Voters FIRST protects and enhances the Voting Rights Act as a guiding principle. Openness and transparency are built into every aspect of the process to prevent the recurrence of the most insidious types of gerrymandering that all too often occur behind closed doors.

The California Voters FIRST redistricting measure empowers all voters in the state of California by means of the following features:

Enhanced Voting Rights Act Protections. California Voters FIRST significantly strengthens the protections embodied in the Voting Rights Act, by expressly prioritizing it high in the list of mapping criteria, and repeatedly requiring its consideration when applying other criteria. Currently, the California Constitution does not even reference the Voting Rights Act in its recitation of redistricting criteria. (See Cal. Const. Art XXI, Sec. 1).