The Gerrymandered State
Posted by on Thursday, April 7, 2011 Comments (19)
The California Redistricting Commission will be holding a hearing on May 23 in San José, tentatively scheduled at San José City Hall. There is nothing that makes people’s eyes glass over faster—and nothing more interesting to politicians—than talk about redrawing district lines.
Every ten years, after the census is taken, political lines have to be adjusted to compensate for population shifts. This is the opportunity for politicians to gerrymander districts. Gerrymandering is the process of turning democracy on its head. Instead of voters picking the politicians, the politicians pick the voters.
After the 1990 census, there was so much conflict with redistricting that the courts had to intercede and draw the lines. That, combined with a few short years of an open primary, led to a minor shift in both parties to the center.
The parties learned this lesson and before the 2000 census; they placed a levy on members to fund consultants to prepare for redistricting. Open hearings were held throughout the state, comments and public input taken. All this material was carefully filed and put into drawers. The party leaders then went into backrooms, closed the doors and drew lines to create safe districts. What was presented to both houses was referred to as the “Incumbent Protection Bill.”
The result was safe districts, and each party’s primary became the actual election, since the general election was pretty much a foregone conclusion. With the primary the key, candidates started catering their messages and themselves to the most energetic flank of their party. Democrats became more liberal, Republicans more conservative. Reaching out, compromise, moderation became a thing of the past. Do it, and you might find the coveted chair position out of reach, your office door locked, or even a party-funded competitor to oust you.
Article continues below image.
Nobody from Santa Clara County will ever be elected to represent California’s Senate District 15, which stretches from Los Gatos and South San Jose all the way to Santa Maria.
Was there outrage? Yes. That’s when the promises started. ‘We now have time to correct this before 2010’ was heard. Years passed and with each one came new promises. Finally it became clear that the politicians themselves would never pass a fair open process. Something had to be done. Lead by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, a wide range of groups formed to pass Proposition 11 and eventually Proposition 20, creating the Citizens Redistricting Commission in charge of redrawing, Assembly, Senate, the Franchise Tax Board and Congressional districts.
The commission has now been formed, consisting of five Democrats, five Republications and four declined to state. All the fears of few and unqualified candidates were unfounded. Over 30,000 applicants applied and the final commission represents a very impressive set of individuals.
Rules on behavior are strict. No consideration of existing politicians, no discussion at all outside public hearings, and absolutely no talking to party leaders. It’s as if the parties don’t exist.
The law is pretty clear that the districts have to obey one person one vote; down to 1 percent margin. The Voting Rights Act has to be obeyed. After that districts have to be compact, continuous and have logical nesting. Counties, cities and communities of interest have to be kept together as much as possible.
Now comes the hard part. We don’t live in counties, cities, and communities of interest that can be easily kept whole within 1% margin of one-person one vote. Some counties and cities will have to be split up, others combined. Where and how that is done is up to the commission and that is why they are holding the hearings. They will do two sets. The first before the draft districts are drawn up, which are going on now. After the drafts, they will have a second set of hearings to take input on adjustments. All discussions will be in open hearings and streamed on the Internet.
So if you are interested in making sure your community, neighborhood association, etc. is not split between political lines, or combined with others in a logical manger, than you might want to attend or at least follow the hearing discussions. This will not be a perfect process and not everyone will be happy, but the end result will be far better than what the parties would have done. And just maybe, maybe, the elected officials will be less beholden to the parties and more to the voters.
For more information got to: http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov.
Post a Comment
Mission Statement: This site is designed to encourage political debate, discussion and change in our city, started by people who value San Jose and are interested in her future and in this valley’s place in the state and nation.
Disclaimer: All views expressed on this site are solely the opinion of the individual writer.
Comment Policy: Please read our comment policy before posting.
© 2013 San Jose Inside. All rights reserved. Contact us
Comments (19)
Post a comment
Visualize Liberty Thu, Apr 7, 2011 - 2:25 pm
While I agree that gerrymandering is a horrible, awful practice, and as Norman suggests, allows politicians to pick their voters, I am troubled by at least on aspect of the commission process:
> The Voting Rights Act has to be obeyed. After that districts have to be compact, continuous and have logical nesting. Counties, cities and communities of interest have to be kept together as much as possible.
This has a bad smell about it.
The Voting Rights Act is itself a problematic, offensive, and possibly unconstitutional interference in the electoral process.
My perception is that the Voting Rights Act has been used in very bizarre ways to increase electoral “success” for “minorities”, and thus, essentially create a system of race conscious and racially manipulated elections.
There is an internet anecdote that says that because of the Voting Rights Act, hispanic voters were allowed to vote multiple times in an election until a hispanic candidate was elected.
I invite Norman to comment and clarify.
His Panic Thu, Apr 7, 2011 - 10:59 pm
I am a registered voter in Santa Clara County who has voted in every election since I was 18 years old and I happen to be of Mexican descent. I have never been given more than one ballot for any election. I have never been allowed or tried to wrangle more than one vote. At no time has any individual or group (political or otherwise) offered additional opportunities to vote simply because I am a Hispanic voter and there was a need for a Hispanic candidate to be elected in office.
It is as preposterous a notion as the notion that President Obama was not born in the United States. Please do not disparage Latino voters by spreading an outright and unproven lie.
Visualize Liberty Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 9:49 am
> Please do not disparage Latino voters by spreading an outright and unproven lie.
Grow up and stop playing your Hispanic victim card.
You’re embarrassing real Hispanic Americans.
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on you Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 11:24 am
YOU are the one who needs to grow up. He or she is the correct one.
Visualize Liberty Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 1:55 pm
> SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on you
Before I accept your judgement that I need to wallow in shame, I will need to check YOUR victim card for authenticity.
What victim group are you claiming to speak for?
And how much government money does you victim group demand from the government for reparations?
I’m not going to accept shame for offending some low-budget, fly-by-night victim group. You need to convince me that your victim group has sustained some genuine, broad-ranging, existential offense.
And then, to expedite processing, you need to provide to me the name of the politician you have designated to collect guilt and shame money on your behalf. We need to verify that guilt and shame money that passes through your politician’s hands doesn’t—shall we say—“stick to his fingers”.
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on you Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 3:12 pm
“What victim group are you claiming to speak for?”
NONE. I just have a moral sense of what is right and what is wrong. I don’t “speak” for ANY group and I do not belong to what you are calling a “victim group”. Your true self is showing. How dare you A$$ume that I have a “victim group”. You don’t know a da^^n thing about me.
“...you need to provide to me….”
No, I don’t NEED to provide you a da^^n thing. Besides being an Idi*t, who in the H do you think you are?
Visualize Liberty Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 7:10 pm
> I just have a moral sense of what is right and what is wrong.
A flawed, solipsistic sense of right and wrong.
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on you Sat, Apr 9, 2011 - 12:42 pm
I prove my point. Keep showing yourself.
Visualize This Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 4:33 pm
There is an internet anecdote that says that because of the Voting Rights Act, hispanic voters were allowed to vote multiple times in an election until a hispanic candidate was elected.
Right. It must be true if it is on the Internet.
Visualize Liberty Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 7:16 pm
> Right. It must be true if it is on the Internet.
Well, no.
It doesn’t HAVE to be true just because it’s on the internet.
But it DOES have to be true if it IS true:
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/cal-thomas/multiple-votes-for-minorities-11633513.html
“Multiple Votes for Minorities?”
Cal Thomas Commentary
“June 17, 2010
“A federal judge in New York has approved a method of voting recommended by officials in the village of Port Chester that allows Hispanic voters to cast up to six ballots. Voters in Port Chester are electing trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged four years ago that the existing system is unfair. Although the village of about 30,000 is one-half Hispanic, no Latino has ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats. Judge Stephen Robinson said that violates the voting rights act.
This is nuts. Maybe the Hispanic voters voted for non-Hispanic candidates because they believed them to be the best ones running. I am amazed at this. Does that mean that if a black person votes for a white person, the white person might not be allowed to win? Will this now extend to gender? Will women be allowed extra votes if a judge decides there are not enough of them in a certain office?
This is the kind of identity politics most Americans have come to hate. It’s bad enough that liberals manage to get ACORN to register non-existent voters and that dead people get to vote in some parts of the country. Multiple voting to achieve a social end is a farce. And it’s no laughing matter.”
Learn How To Read Mon, Apr 11, 2011 - 1:20 pm
First, Cal Thomas is no more accurate or unbiased than is Fox News. As with almost all social and religious conservatives, he will twist the facts to fit his agenda.
The one comment to his moronic post states the truth.
“...and so a new racist victimology myth is created. In reality though, in a form of proportional voting EVERYBODY was allowed to cast up to six ballots, not only Hispanic voters.”
Visualize LIberty Mon, Apr 11, 2011 - 7:20 pm
> First, Cal Thomas is no more accurate or unbiased than is Fox News.
Neither Cal Thomas nor Fox News made up the facts.
Just because you don’t like the facts doesn’t mean their not true.
Reality exists outside of your head.
John Galt Thu, Apr 7, 2011 - 5:59 pm
This should be a cartographic, not a political exercise.
A cash prize to the person who comes up with a map of California divided into the required number of districts containing the correct number of people such that the sum total of the length of all the boundaries between districts is as small as possible, making the districts as compact as possible. Period.
The idea is to remove politics from the map drawing process. However the map comes out is how it comes out. No favoritism. No cause for anybody to grouse.
OfficerD Thu, Apr 7, 2011 - 10:26 pm
JG,
That sounds like the most equitable solution. I bet all the info necessary to accurately complete this endeavor is lurking on some Google mainframe somewhere, lol.
Kevin O'Keeffe Thu, Apr 7, 2011 - 11:05 pm
“a map of California divided into the required number of districts containing the correct number of people such that the sum total of the length of all the boundaries between districts is as small as possible, making the districts as compact as possible. Period.”
Bravo, sir. That is exactly what the people of this state need, and ought to be demanding.
Blair Whitney Fri, Apr 8, 2011 - 6:15 pm
I like using topography and population clusters over all the PC crap with the Voters Rights Act (which is a pretense to gerrymander like Affirmative Action is a pretense to discriminate against non-favored minority applicants.)
I’d give this process a 70% chance of improving things, but expect there to still be shenanigans and lawsuits.
And our election in Santa Clara County are not perfect, we still have 5-10% fraud which isn’t a big deal unless you get a close race. It comes down to disputed ballots and which one’s you throw out and count when a few make the difference. Back office stuff that should catch things like people registering who are ineligible to vote isn’t really done well. People also love to cast extra votes when they are riled up and partisan and have no problem mailing in grannies ballot that came in the mail or helping the residents of a nursing home vote “right”.
Old school machines would have poll watchers making sure everyone in the ward voted and send people to fetch them to the polls to vote if they hadn’t gotten there near closing time. Santa Clara County is not nearly that organized, but the GOTV effort, especially around mail in ballot does make the difference in a lot of races.
Kevin O'Keeffe Sat, Apr 9, 2011 - 8:26 am
The Voting Rights Act should be repealed, or at the very least, modified to exclude Monterey, and the other California counties it presently covers (Santa Clara County, like most other counties in this state, are exempt from many/most of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act, but Monterey County is ludicrously grouped in with Mississippi and Alabama).
Joe Sat, Apr 9, 2011 - 4:50 pm
The problem is that voting was taken away from the voters and given to the politicians, their lawyers and their pollsters. The truth of the matter is that most districts are designed to keep the incumbent in place, especially if it is a member of the party in control. The politicians would obtain maps showing the households and how those members were registered. They would literally get out the black pens and draw boundries to preserve the majority vote. This is why Morgan Hill is stuck with McEnerny, who resides in the Tracy/Livermore area. It has no connection with Morgan Hill. The district goes down the East side of the Mt. Hamilton range and then has one finger crawling Westward to capture Morgan Hill and some surrounding area. Total and complete gerrymandering. The politicians do the same to preserve race based districts. Although more prevalent in other states, it raises similar concerns here. In Monterey County, district wide races were banned because of the failure to elect Hispanic candidates. The Hispanic votes were “diluted” and therefore they appeared to be disenfranchised. No doubt those same concerns will arise after the commission finishes their job. Districts should be geographic instead of voter registration based. People who reside and vote in the Salinas Valley have different concerns from voters who live in Palo Alto.
Visualize Liberty Sun, Apr 10, 2011 - 7:26 pm
Here’s another thing that makes sensible people queasy about the so-called “Voting Rights Act”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case
In this case, it was a conscious, pre-meditated decision by the regime in power (that is, the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION) to NOT enforce the Voting Rights Act in order to gain (or preserve) a political advantage with a voting block (i.e., black voters).
If the Voting Rights Act is just another federal law to be enforced or ignored as the ruling class pleases so as to maximize their political advantage, then it is just another tool for dishonestly manipulating elections.