Joe Matthews On Why the Redistricting Measure (Prop 11) will Lose

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Joe Matthews, a former LA Times reporter, and a fellow at the New America Foundation, pretty much shot down two (Republican leaning) radical business moderates, Tony Quinn and Joel Fox, on Fox's blog. As purely political analysis of why the proposition will likely lose, it's quite brilliant. I highly suggest the post if you are at all interested in the measure. But I just loved his take on why this is a waste of time:

I'm not a doctor, but I enjoy practicing medicine without a license. Recently, I've begun diagnosing a California disease called Redistricting Fantasy Syndrome. Most of the population doesn't know enough about redistricting to be susceptible to the disease. But in certain elite precincts, RFS has become a minor epidemic, striking down otherwise sensible moderate "goo goos" who persist in the belief that good process is good for you.

* * *

This disease at first seems harmless, but because it disproportionately affects our state's most civic-minded thinkers, it has caused outsized damage. Redistricting -- and the unreasonable hopes that it can be achieved -- are consuming time, energy and even Fox and Hounds space that would be better devoted to some of the state's deeper problems. The opportunity costs of RFS are huge.

Matthews goes on to say that it might affect 6 seats, and that's the guess I would go with too. But, it would hardly make the devastating impact Common Cause want you to believe.