On May 5, Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State, announced that the initiative concerning how U.S. House boundaries are drawn has qualified for the November 2010 ballot. The measure would provide that the Citizens Redistricting Commission draw boundaries for U.S. House districts. California already has such a Commission, but under existing law it only draws the boundaries for state office districts.
A rival petition is circulating to completely abolish the Citizens Redistricting Commission, and it may possibly also appear on the November 2010 ballot.
This also makes some subtle changes to the process.
The 2008 initiative also set standards for congressional districts, even though it left the actual line drawing in the hands of the legislature. The legislature was also supposed to coordinate with the commission with regard to hearings, etc.
The legislature was explicitly permitted to include political data, and residences of incumbent representatives, and potential candidates – which of course might include themselves. Under the new initiative, the same standards would be used for all districts and political considerations and incumency protection would be off limits for congressional districts.
The plan drawn by the commission is subject to the referendum process, just as if it were passed by the legislature. This is also true of legislatively-drawn maps for Congress (since they are simply bills that have dozens of pages of numbers). But if the legislature designates a bill as “urgent” it is not subject to the referendum. In the past, a redistricting plan has been overturned in a referendum, and the legislature simply turned around and passes the same (or similar) as a matter of urgency.
So under the new initiative, the congressional plan would be subject to an ordinary referendum just like those for legislative districts.
The new initiative refines the definition of “neighborhood” and “community of interest”, adding the qualification of local and adding some explanatory text.
The new initiative would also move the deadline 15 days earlier (from September 1, 2011; to August 15, 2011). I would guess timing of any referendum would be tight, since the districts will have to be in place for the 2012 primary and its qualification period.
Some of the California parties use congressional districts for selection of presidential convention delegates, but there is no reason that the existing districts can not be used.
ps It was likely intentional to exclude congressional redistricting from the initial measure, so as to not draw opposition from the political parties, who care more about Congress. Legislators opposing legislative redistricting would also have appeared to be too self serving.
Will Western Civilization survive with the ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymanders in CA ???
The WAR for REAL Democracy continues — about 7,000 plus years and counting — against the EVIL monarchs / oligarchs.
P.R. and A.V. — NO single member districts and resulting automatic minority rule gerrymanders.