Back in February I wrote about the efforts of the new Citizens Redistricting Commission to hire a consultant to help them draw our new districts and how Republicans were trying to blow up the process.
Well on Saturday the Commission will finally be making a decision and the Reps are still at it. One of the two finalists is the Rose Institute. The LA Times, Sacramento Bee and California Journal have all called Rose a Republican-oriented, conservative organization.
Running the project for Rose is Doug Johnson. Johnson is a registered Republican who was once the Legislative Director for Republican Congressman Steve Horn. He worked for the Republican-dominated Florida State Senate on redistricting, which passed a Republican partisan gerrymander. A federal court found, “The Republican-controlled legislature intended to maximize the number of Republican congressional and legislative seats through the redistricting process.”
Even worse, two of the final four candidates for the Commission’ attorney charged with protect the federal voting rights of California’s diverse electorate are also hard-core Republicans. One firm, Nielsen, Merksamer, has represented Republicans in statewide redistricting litigation. Partner Steven Merksamer was chief of staff to Governor Deukmejian. Attorney Daniel Kolkey from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher was Governor Wilson’s Legal Affairs Secretary and represented him during the 1990 redistricting cases.
We need to step up and make clear to Commissioners that they have been charged by the people of California with drawing lines in a fair and impartial manner and hiring a Republican line-drawer and Republican attorney would be a serious violation of the public’s trust. Send your comments to [email protected]. The deadline is Friday at 1 PM. For those in the Sacramento area, you can attend their hearing on Saturday at 9 AM in Room 447 of the State Capitol.
am sending an email right now.
WOW !!
That is amazing
How did this happen ?
There seems to be no coverage in the ‘mainstream’ corporate media
Let’s hope that members of the commission take their responsibilities seriously
It goes further than that. The Rose Institute was originally created by Alan Heslop a Republican strategist because he felt that the Republicans in the California legislature were not getting enough information from the state for their efforts. It was set up as a non-profit venture, but controlled by leading members of the Republican Party. I think if you look into Mr. Johnson’s background, you will find that Steve Horn is not the only Republican he has worked for and in fact he played a very vital role in helping Republicans in other states, particularly Arizona.
When they voted for a commission that over-represents the GOP (instead of basing the membership on the proposition of registered voters.) and sets up requirements so the average voter is not going to have the time and ability to be on the commission.
who heavily promoted the Commission at the time of the 2008 and 2010 elections. I’ve forwarded this story to them and asked them to (1) explain why this is not reason for substantial concern or (2) to activate their networks and prevent the corruption of this process. I’ll report back in on what they say.
The Rose Institute has a noteworthy track record in the area of reapportionment.
http://rosereport.org/
But arguments in favor of experience and capability should take a back seat to the question of impartiality.
OK, this may sound like a very simplistic question, but why does this commission need to hire a consultant? Seriously, they are getting paid to do a job, do the job and stop wasting tax payer money by hiring consultants that are nothing but flunkies for a political ideology!
I have long felt that a system of electing representation using proportional representation would be a more equitable method of distribution legislative seats both on the state and national level than the current system, would represent a greater portion of the population than the current winner-take-all method that I believe disenfranchises many voters (resulting in low voter turn out), and would resolve the gerrymandering problem once and for all.
The first two points go hand in hand I believe. I suspect that many non-voters do not participate in the electoral process because they do not feel that “their vote counts”, thereby suppressing voter turn out and building apathy towards government. By using a system of proportional representation, the views of more voters would be represented in the legislature, perhaps providing them with a sense of “ownership”, if you will, and giving more credibility to “representative” government. Maybe a better dialog could result from this, and fewer moments, such as the horrible shooting in Arizona, would occur. The self-perceived “voiceless” would have a voice.
The way I envision the a potential application of proportional representation would be one where each political party receiving a minimal percentage of the total vote (say for arguments sake, 5% as they used in South Africa at the end of Apartheid) would be able to construct their own legislative districts using a slate of candidates from which to fill their self-delineated districts, so that every portion of the state would be represented by a member of a different political party. For instance, Democrats in every part of the state would have a representative with whom they could communicate, as opposed to the current system where a Democratic individual in a Republican district is not currently represented by someone who shares their views. People of all political persuasions (provided they are part of a group of significant size to have a member of the legislature) would be represented by a person who shares their political opinions more closely than is currently achieved. For example, I would suspect that there would be Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Peace and Freedom, and who knows who else, as legislators, so that any one Californian would have a diverse collection of legislators who would represent them in the Assembly, state Senate, and House of Representatives, greatly increasing the power of the individual and nearly guaranteeing representation on a multitude of issues; each person might have five or more representatives with which to communicate. This method of selection of representation would eliminate gerrymandering altogether, rendering useless these politicized “apolitical” commissions. It sure would make a mess of how the current legislative committee system works, but as we all know, it’s not working really well right now anyway.
However ideal I feel a solution such as this to be, I do realize that those who hold the power to initiate such a change are also those who would lose most by making the change, and are therefore unlikely to take it on. But I can dream….