California Common Cause has worked for years to change the process by which politicians currently draw their own political districts -- a process that in effect allows politicians to choose their voters before voters can choose among politicians.

These efforts took a big step forward today with the official launch of the Voters FIRST initiative.  This ballot question, filed by Common Cause, AARP, and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, will appear on the November 2008 ballot if enough Californians sign petitions to support it by next April.
Read the full text of the initiative here.

Today, the campaign received a big boost in receiving endorsements from the California League of Women Voters and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Editorialist Steven Chapman writes that the Supreme Court Texas redistricting decision in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry threatens American democracy. In the 2004 U.S. House races, only 5 of the 392 incumbents running for reelection lost to challengers. With its majority opinion allowing for the Texas legislature's partisan redistricting, the Supreme Court gave the states the power to secure offices for the dominant party. Chapman writes:

Texas Republicans claimed that Texas' previous districting map was unfair, giving Democrats more seats than their vote total reflected. Chapman writes, "But it's no solution to replace one grossly unfair partisan reapportionment with another. The winners change, but the losers - the people of Texas - remain the same."

You can read the editorial here.

The article originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune.