Tomorrow morning, we will get the first 8 names of the 14 member redistricting panel.  The state auditor will randomly draw 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and 2 DTS/Others to serve on the panel. (Hey…look at that…it doesn’t match registration. Must be good to be a Republican and overrepresented by 20%.)  Those panelists will select the final 6 members.

The redistricting nominees, 36 of them in all, are a pretty interesting bunch.  You can find the all the details of the nominees here and a good summary of some of the notable names from John Myers here.  Myers points out what we had all been saying the entire time: it’s not going to be a very diverse group at all.

Demographically speaking, most remaining applicants are either white or Latino; most are in Los Angeles County; and most have an income between $75,000 and $250,000. (Capitol Notes)

After the first eight are selected, you have to imagine diversity will be a big part of the goals of grabbing the last six members.  But, beyond the question of ethnic diversity, the diversity of incomes is probably the more troublesome matter.  This panel will be a fairly well-off panel that doesn’t have the accountability that comes with having to scour for votes. That’s good and bad of course. However, missing the perspective of those who are not economically comfortable is a gaping whole in this process.

There are other holes to be found as well.  Notably, there is nobody from our largest city, Los Angeles.  Also, there is only one member of a minor party, (the Green Party), and no members of any of the other minor parties.

We’ll see what we come up with, but in the end, this whole process seems to be overblown and ridiculous. We’re spending an order of magnitude more money on this so that we can have “more square shaped districts”.  Seems like a waste of money.

Also, I’ll be waiting on Texas to do this as well.