Democrats against democracy: California Prop 77

Topics: Democracy
26 Oct 2005

From: Ervan Darnell











After the Bush-Gore gridlock in Florida in 2000, Democrats were
especially fond of proclaiming the sanctity of the democratic process.
I doubt any of us believed them then, but the hypocrisy is especially
naked in the case of California prop 77. The current redistricing in
California is so partisan that most political analysts find there to be
zero or maybe one contested races out of 153 [1][2][3]. It's also
ironic that DeLay is seen as a villian for redistricting Texas to
Republican's favor by the same Democrats who see no problem with
similar (but Democratic) redistricting in California.

Schwarzenegger sponsored prop 77 to turn the process over to
judges. While that might not be perfect, it's a clearly an
improvement over the current situation. How much worse can it get than
your vote counting for nothing? Not surprisingly, Democrats
are aghast at the prospect of elections actually mattering (e.g.
Democrats raising substantial money to defeat 77, [4][5]). In
fairness, incumbents of both parties dislike the thought, so one has to
discount what sitting politicians think, but the opposition from the
party mainstream is more telling.

The opposition is really a confession in its weakness [6]:



The first point is confession that the current system is not working.
The second is an even more blunt confession that the idea of voters
having control is a bad idea. The third has 1% merit, but Democrats
did not propose that the plan be implemented at the next census, but
rather never. So, that complaint is not very compelling.

Official "no" campaign rebuttal [7]:
class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 200%;"> style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: Arial;"
lang="EN">Why did proponents write Prop 77 so that new redistricting
maps to go into effect before voters have a chance to vote on them?

It's that way now, no (direct) voter approval! Prop 77 would partially
change this for more (direct) voter approval, not less. But yet they
use the lack of total voter approval as a reason to oppose it.

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 200%;"> style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: Arial;"
lang="EN">Why did proponents write Prop 77 so new district maps would
be drawn using old census data from 5 years ago?

Duh, because that's when the last census was done.

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: Arial;"
lang="EN"> class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 200%;"> style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: Arial;"
lang="EN">Why
did proponents write Prop 77 to eliminate the Constitutional guarantee
that geographic communities of interest must be protected in any
redistricting?

There is no such guarantee, de facto, now.


Such weak rebuttals admit to only one explanation: more competitive
races mean more flipping of seats, which simply as a statistical matter
is bad for the majority party. Thus, the majority Democrats are
offering the following implicit thesis: fewer elected Democrats are
bad, period, fair elections be damned. Since, well, obviously,
Democrats are the good guys, we can't take a chance on elections. I'm
sure Republicans would be the same were they they majority party in
California.

I find the whole debate to be rather like the national debate on
Supreme Court judges. The matter of being a competent judge is
completely submerged under the question of abortion _policy_ (for both
left and right). That
is, a fair and impartial process, as should be voting and judging, does
not even seem to be an objective deserving more than lip service.

This all reminds of campaign finance reform: someone wants to criticize
an incumbent politcian, therefore make it illegal. While the
Republicans have signed up with this, the Democrats have been more
enthusiastic about it. Again, sitting incumbent politicians have a
special interest in preventing competitive races, but the liberal
motivation here is a rather more sinister assumption that the
government is so good at managing things it should manage its own
election as well.

--------------------------------

[1] href="http://inquirer.stanford.edu/2005/hhboy77/Prop77.html">http://inquirer.stanford.edu/2005/hhboy77/Prop77.html
[2]
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/05/EDGAJF2DLN1.DTL">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/05/EDGAJF2DLN1.DTL
[3] href="http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i 050124&s=trb012405">http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i 050124&s=trb012405
[4]
href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/elections/12999282.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_politics">http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/elections/12999282.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_politics
[5]
href="http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/story/13707395p-14549988c.html">http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/story/13707395p-14549988c.html
[6] http://ca.lwv.org/lwvc/edfund/elections/2005nov/pc/prop77.html
[7] http://www.noonproposition77.com/






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