Why Redistricting? Why Now?
I can almost understand why Common Cause would support this, and your non-partisan status allows you to claim the moral high ground in the debate. But I think this is a flawed plan. There's a reason Schwarzenegger supports this: he wants more "moderate" (read: buyable and Republican) politicians to get elected. He's looking for more power over the legislature: it's that simple. And any time someone wants to remove power from an elected body and hand it to an appointed one, I get suspicious. It's far too easy to pack a commission with partisan hacks. Just look at the CPUC.
I think the real issue here is not the redistricting process: the problem is single-seat districts elected by plurality vote. If we used ranked choice voting or proportional representation to elect legislators to multi-seat districts, we could eliminate much of the corruption and graft that dominate the legislature...and the governor's office. Grassroots candidates have a real chance of winning such an election, and multi-seat districts ensure that most of a district has at least some representation. For more information on RCV, multi-seat districts, and other true electoral reforms, visit the the Center for Voting and Democracy at http://www.fairvote.org/.
I know it's tempting to latch on to short term reforms since they seem to have a chance of passing, but let's not let that temptation keep us from our real goal: getting the money out of politics and giving community-based candidates a chance to win.
| 
Common Blog
