“Sound Bite” Politics: “Don’t Let The Politicians Pick The Voters”…

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

The premise behind this sound bite is that because Republicans tend to vote for Republican candidates and Democrats to vote for Democratic candidates, mapping them into districts in unequal numbers is wrong.

Democrats now control the partisan offices in all of California’s major cities. The higher proportion of voters from ethnic minority groups tells part of that story. Culture explains a lot of the remainder. But whatever the reason, it comes down to this: Republicans, in general, don’t congregate their residences in the same place as Democrats.

California is segregated by political party.

Of course, there are Democrats everywhere and Republicans everywhere. But in most of the state you are either in an area where Republicans are dominant or where Democrats are dominant

Voters, not politicians, made that choice. The choice of where to live.

The result of this is a set of districts dominated by Republicans in the rural and suburban areas of the State – and a set of districts dominated by Democrats in the urban areas of the state, along most of California’s coast, and in our cities.

Without ugly lines – or uglier lines – that is how it must be if we are to obey both California’s Constitutional requirements (contiguity, respect for local boundaries and
Communities of interest) and Federal requirements (equal population, and the voting rights act).

In the 1980’s, the combination of massive growth and smaller districts and the absence of subsequent voting rights act requirements gave more discretion to line drawers.

In the 1990’s, the Supreme Court found that discretion limited by Federal Court cases.

By 2000, the actions of Pete Wilson in moving the Republican Party into a hostile position vis-à-vis the voting relatives of millions of immigrants had eliminated the Republicans as a competitive force in California’s urban Counties - with a delaying action being fought in San Diego and Orange.