Lately, those of you who have had the misfortune of getting caught in one of my rants have heard how angry I am about the pay raises that that the Legislature gave to itself and staff this year.  In case you are tempted to feel sorry for them, Ca. Assembly members earn $116,208 / year.  Don't even get me going on the recent full-time six-figure commission appointments, aka golden parachutes for ex-legislators. SF Chronicle just reported that they have put in their orders for new cars to lease for 2009.  This might just be a drop in the bucket of a projected $28 billion budget shortfall, but it is offensive in the threatened face of cuts to essential services.  

Well, the Sac Bee came out with this cartoon.  I thought it said it all.

The USC California Policy Institute (CPI) issued this opinion piece on redistricting reforms, which ran in the San Jose Mercury News on Friday, July 8, 2005. The article suggests that linking term limits and redistricting reforms may strike many as a crude political deal; but it may, in fact, be good public policy. It is authored by Walter Zelman, Director of USC California Policy Institute, zelman@usc.edu.  Zelman was the past-Executive Director of California Common Cause.

Please feel free to share this with your colleagues and as always do not hesitate post your feedback or questions in the comments section.

It's another beautiful summer out here in Southern California. Students are on break. The weather is perfect for surfing.

In San Diego, there have already been debates happening almost every day involving candidates who are running in the special election for San Diego Mayor. So you can see there were a whole host of reasons why San Diegans might have chosen to tune out yet another mayoral forum.

But this was not just another forum that would let the candidates slip and slide with pat answers to easy questions.  Our Defending Democracy Mayoral Forum on Government Accountability and Reform generated a packed house of some 500 people, who came to listen, challenge, and hold the candidates accountable.

The Defending Democracy Panel asked hard questions about whether the candidates would clean up the mess Mayor Murphy left with support for clean money campaign, open meetings, strong ethics enforcement, and transparency around development projects. The opportunity to seize the day was in our hands, and we grabbed it!

The major candidates, both Donna Frye and Jerry Sanders, and others are now on record as supporting public financing of campaigns, stricter sunshine rules, and more accountability of local finances.

San Diego has had its share of trials these last few months. On Thursday, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham announced that he would not be running for office again, amidst serious allegations of receiving money from a defense contractor lobbyist, with $163 million in federal contract dollars at stake. Both Cunningham and Mayor Murphy are under investigation for engaging in pay-to-play politics, policy-making in secrecy, and squandering the public's trust.

Imagine if San Diego adopted public financing for campaigns and the strongest ethics laws in California!  California Common Cause members are making it happen!

And they said it couldn't happen!

Last week, we stood with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D - Oakland) at the announcement of a new bill to signify Senate leadership support for an independent redistricting commission. Our President, Chellie Pingree, flew out to California to commend Senate leaders Don Perata, Gloria Romero (D - Los Angeles), Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles), and authors Alan Lowenthal (D - Long Beach) and Roy Ashburn (R - Bakersfield) for working tirelessly toward a solution to this problem. The bill, SCA 3,  creates a panel of citizens (not just retired judges) who will redistrict once a decade after the Census.

SCA 3 was given a hearing before the Senate Elections Committee on Wednesday, June 29 for the first time.  We were pleased that Senate members in Sacramento engaged in an actual dialogue about their concerns with the bill and possible language changes that might bring about more votes from each side. The questions directed to Chellie and me were substantive and genuine - a departure from the grandstanding we were seeing only a few weeks ago.

We believe that the amended version of SCA 3, authored by Sen. Lowenthal, is a step in the right direction. But many changes were needed. Because of changes we advocated at the hearing, the bill was amended yet again to include new language, including:

1. Banning staff, consultants and contractors, and all persons with a financial or family relationship with state legislators, congressional members, and Board of Equalization members from serving as Commissioners.
   
   
2. Clarifying the redistricting criteria: a) setting the standard for meeting the equal population to follow the federal constitutional standards, b)strengthening language to express a commitment to protecting minority communities from vote dilution and complying with the federal Voting Rights Act, and c) making communities of interest a separate criteria deserving of a higher ranking.

As a result of our testimony, the Committee will also consider changes to ban data on incumbent's residence from being considered, stronger hearing and public input requirements, a 2/3 super-majority vote requirement, and nesting of Assembly seats in Senate seats.

In addition to attending that hearing Chellie also appeared at a Tuesday press conference last week to commend the Democrats for moving forward with redistricting efforts.  Here is a picture from that press event:

 
Left to right- Jackie Jacobberger, League of Women Voters – California, President, Chellie Pingree, Common Cause President, Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D – Long Beach), Author of SCA 3, Sen. President Pro Tem Don Perata (D – Oakland)

Let me end by saying, this movement (although it is just an early step) could not have happened without you! Our Common Cause members' calls to Senator Perata and many other legislators made the difference. We let our electeds know that there are lot of Californians that care deeply about stoking the fire of democracy and keeping it burning bright!

First of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to call our state legislative leaders last few weeks about redistricting reform.  I have gottem the word that they were OVERWHELMED!  Our grassroots activism has resulted in Assembly hearings on April 14th.  In fact, Sen. Don Perata (D - Oakland) said in the LA Times, "We originally said it's a non-starter. We've come a long ways now, saying we're willing to sit down and work something out."

So, today we are launching a new push for another critical issue in the Golden State - campaign finance reform. Asm. Loni Hancock (D - Berkeley) has introduced a "clean money" bill, AB 583. Her bill will create a voluntary system of financing elections where qualified candidates receive public money (a block grant whose amount is determined by the office the candidate is running for) in exchange for accepting spending limits. There are protections in place if a candidate is opposed by a wealthy candidate who "opts out" of the system or is the subject of an independent expenditure campaign.

Maine and Arizona have clean money systems, that increase voter turnout and legislator responsiveness.  Chellie, who used to be the Majority Leader in the Maine State Senate, has personal experience adovocating this issue:
We want to make the same difference in cleaning up California's election system. In a state as large as California, election costs can spiral out of control, making candidates increasingly dependent of corporate donors and wealthy individuals. Without an alternative system of public financing, candidates who pander to affluent interests will always have the advantage in reaching voters.

So, the first vote on AB 583 will be on April 19th in the Assembly Elections Committee. If you are in California, specially if you live in Orange County, please contact Elections Committee Chair Asm. Umberg and Vice Chair Asm. Villines, Let them know you are a Common Cause member and tell them you want the committee to approve clean money elections for our state:

• Asm. Tom Umberg (D - Santa Ana, Anaheim), Chair - call (916) 319-2069
• Asm. Villines (R - Clovis) Vice Chair - call (916) 319-2029

Also please put in couple of additional calls to Asm. Mark Leno and Asm. Lloyd Levine, thanking them for their indications of voting yes on this bill:

• Asm. Mark Leno (D - San Francisco) - call (916) 319-2013
• Asm. Lloyd Levine (D - Van Nuys) - call (916) 319-2040

So please make these calls. Let us know how they are going and as always let me know if you have any other thoughts or feedback on pushing for clean elections. Like I said above - our activism is already making a huge difference in the Golden State. So lets keep the pressure on.

We have good news!  Your phone calls, letters and e-mails to put an end to California’s incumbent protection plan are working!

When we last wrote to our supporters in California take action on redistricting, we asked everyone to call on the Leadership in Sacramento to take action on two very important bills SCA 3 and ACAX1 3, which will bring much needed reform to the way political boundaries are drawn in this state. Many of our supporters called or even visited theirrepresentatives.

Well, the lawmakers in Sactown sure are listening!  Because of our collective grassroots lobbying effort there will be an informational hearing on redistricting reform this Thursday, April 14, in Sacramento. The hearing will be held from 12 noon to 2:00 p.m. in Room 126 of the Capitol Building. This is a big first step toward restoring truly representative democracy to California.

But we need to keep the pressure on. So today we are asking everyone to keep calling the following three leaders of the Assembly and the Senate, and demanding real redistricting reform:

• Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles): (916)-319-2046
• Senate President Pro-tem Don Perata (D-Oakland): (916)-651-4009
• Chair of the Assembly Elections Committee Representative Tom Umberg (D-Anaheim): (916)-319-2069

Ask these three leaders to hold hearings on SCA 3 or ACAX1 3 and bring them to a vote. We know many of you have already called. But now is not the time for us to let up. So please make those three phone calls today and ask your family, friends, coworkers to join your efforts to reform California by going to the following link:

www.commoncause.org/pushCaliforniaRedistricting

No change is easy, especially when it is about giving it back to the people.  These calls are extremely important to convince our legislative leadership to support a bill that is better than the propositions circulating for signatures.

While talking about pushing for redistricting reform in California, I should mention that we do not prefer a mid-census redistricting, as has been proposed in California.  I think this op-ed in the L.A.Times by Tony Quinn does a good job of describing the situation and laying out the reasons for waiting until the next census to redistrict the state:

Click here to read rest of Quinn's op-ed. Quinn by the way on California Legislature's redistricting staff in 1971 and 1981 and was an expert witness in a court challenge to the districts passed in 2001. He is co-editor of the California Target Book.

Continuing with my series of posts on redistricting reform efforts in California, which I started yesterday.  One of the main concerns our members have expressed to me in person and here on the blog concerning our redistrictng reform drive in California - is their suspicions of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s motives in calling for an independent redistricting commission.  They fear that this commission will not be independent because Governor himself is going to be choosing the panel.  That's not the case.

The original legislation we supported was Senator Lowenthal’s, a strong Democrat from Long Beach.  We ran into opposition from both Democrats and Republicans in the legislature, not because of their party affiliation, but because they were incumbents who wanted to keep the redistricting process as self-serving as possible.

In other states, the redistricting commissions have not been truly independent, because the legislature and Governor have been intimately involved in picking who serves on the panel – making them proxies for the incumbents.  As I mentioned above, that is not the case with the California proposals in play.  Right now, the two proposals we have endorsed do not give the Governor a role in choosing the panel for the redistricting commission.  So the concern that CA Governor is going to stack the commission with his picks compromisng it's "independent" status is moot because under current proposals he will not have that power. 

Common Cause has been supporting and advocating this type of redistricting process for years, and we are just continuing that here in California.  Our goal here is to create legislative and congressional districts in California that are representative of the population and districting plans that result in more competitive congressional and state legislative districts.