N??ez to Push Legislative "Reforms" - But Avoids the Real Issues

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Facing the end of both his term in the state assembly and as its Speaker, Fabian N??ez is pushing a series of "legislative reforms," as reported in today's LA Times. The problem is that these "reforms" will do little to produce actual improvements in governance - and if N??ez is interested in securing his "legacy" as the article suggests, he's taking the wrong approach.

N??ez is trying to put three initiatives on the November ballot - a term limits extension that would only apply to legislators who are not in their final terms (so that N??ez himself won't benefit); a ban on fundraising during budget negotiations - and a redistricting measure.

N??ez is teaming up with Yacht Party leader Mike Villines on all of these reform initiatives, including redistricting. The article does not detail the N??ez redistricting measure, but noted that he (rightly) objected to the Schwarzenegger plan's possibility of weakening majority-minority districts - and that N??ez believes the best way to defeat Arnold's redistricting plan is to provide his own alternative. The article also notes that N??ez has $5.1 million to spend on these accounts (assuming he doesn't give in to the pressure to return that to the CDP).

But nowhere in N??ez' legacy plan is there anything regarding the 2/3 rule for budget and tax votes in the Legislature, by far the most important reform that the Legislature needs. $5.1 million would provide a major boost to an effort to eliminate the 2/3 rule and restore sanity to the state budget process. Given the likelihood of a Yacht Party holdout on the budget this summer public support for a 2/3 elimination would be high this November.

Instead N??ez is wasting his time on less relevant issues. Term limits reform would be nice, but it's not the state's highest priority at the moment. Same with fundraising during budget talks.

Most importantly, the entire redistricting reform movement is a sham, built upon completely unproven assumptions and on the unstated but key desire to reduce the number of Democrats in Sacramento. More on that below.
The LA Times article repeats the usual spin of the redistricting reformers:

Reformers say districts with more evenly balanced populations of Republican and Democratic voters would create more competitive elections and encourage legislators to pursue compromise instead of partisanship.

Nowhere does the article discuss the critics of these reformers, so I guess I'll have to do that myself.

For six years I lived in a state - Washington - that redistricts in exactly the way Arnold has proposed. Washington has been using this method to draw its districts since 1983. But the Washington legislature exhibits just as much partisan rancor as the California legislature. Republicans and Democrats rarely compromise in Olympia - instead they fight with each other just as often as they do in Sacramento.

Nor are elections particularly competitive in most Washington districts. Currently Democrats hold 2/3 majorities in the state legislature. Virtually all of Seattle, Everett, and Tacoma have long been Democratic strongholds, which has now been extended to all of King County. Very few Republicans now represent any part of the Puget Sound region.

This is because partisanship is NOT a product of legislative districts. It is instead a fact of American political life and has been ever since Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson formed the first political parties in 1792.

The notion that Republicans and Democrats are different because of non-competitive elections is absurd. The difference comes from very deeply held political beliefs. And the notion that the Republican Party in particular might become more centrist with redistricting reform is totally ignorant of the way that party has operated for the last 40 years. Since the conservative takeover of GOP institutions in the 1960s, moderate Republicanism has been dead in California. The only Republicans who survive primary elections are conservatives.

And it's going to be very difficult to draw districts that would give Democrats a chance to defeat such wingnuts. This is the other colossal flaw of redistricting - Republicans and Democrats tend to live near each other. It is simply impossible to draw competitive districts in San Francisco, the East Bay, Los Angeles proper, southern Orange County, Bakersfield, or Temecula - without engaging in gerrymandering of a more dramatic sort than has ever been done by legislators themselves.

The only supporters of redistricting reform are those who believe California sends too many Democrats to the state legislature, and who believe that we can send more Republicans with "more competitive districts." Realize that Republicans have 12% fewer registered voters in this state than Democrats, a gap that is widening. It is not possible to make all or even most districts "competitive." California voters have made their choices and we should respect those choices.

Redistricting reform failed in 2005, and it will likely fail in 2008. If N??ez wants to use his $5.1 million warchest for something useful, for something to build a legacy around, he should pursue changing the 2/3 rule. This is by far the best year to do so, and he would have a state grateful to him were he to champion such a measure.