Joseph Hall’s blog has this interesting description of how California will choose the citizens who will draw state legislative districts after the 2010 census. The procedure gives a meaningful role to voters who are registered outside of the Democratic and Republican Parties. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
LPCA opposed this because it bent over backwards to cater to the major parties, when there should have been no catering to any political parties at all. That “meaningful role” is 4 slots out of 14 and it takes 9 to pass anything, so the fix is in for the majors from step 1.
Why not give 4 to GOP, 4 to Dem and 5 to “minor parties”? Or would that be too much like right? Then they couldn’t railroad a proposal over the “minor party” objections!
Thanks for posting this. It will be interesting to see how the redistricting goes in 2011.
#2 Probably because they wanted to get the initiative passed without overt opposition from the political parties.
I don’t believe any attempt at a non-partisan election, random selection or appointment process could exist completely outside the influence the major parties anyway. I like this relative to the previous system, where minor parties have no direct role in the system beyond what incumbents think of them, and a proportional system based on registration or an election would have given minor parties, and the Republicans, a much smaller share. It could be said the fix is in against the Democrats.
I don’t mind that one bit.
#1 is false. A majority vote is not a simple “9” votes out of 14.
The 9 votes MUST consist of a majprity of all three groups. 3 out if 5 Dems, 3 out of 5 Reps, And 3 out of 4 Other.
So the “fix” is not in. If any one of the three groups does not vote a majority of their own members, then there is no approval.
Example: If 5 out of 5 Dems vote Yes, and 5 out of 5 Reps vote Yes, but only 2 out of 4 Other vote Yes, then there is no majority even though the final vote count would be 12 out of 14.
Regarding #4. There was overt opposition. The California Democratic Party officially opposed the initiative. The Republicans remained neutral.
Good for California. I’m a Democrat, but I think minor parties deserve a seat at the table. I also think we need non-partisan redistricting in every state. I’m from Washington, and we’ve had a bipartisan (unfortunately no one other than Dems and GOPers) for a while now, and it’s worked well.