Comments on: Schwarzenegger Campaigns for Election Reform

By: KathayFeng

KathayFeng — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:46:48 +0000

Hi Paul, Thanks for your thoughtful analysis. So far, we've been gaining steam on building our post-partisan coalition. It seems the only opposition we get are from the political hacks and party operatives who hate to see a change in the way they currently control redistricting. My experience in 2001 was witnessing how Democrats and Republicans alike were willing to throw communities under the bus in order to gerrymander districts to protect themselves. They cemented not only the partisan entrenchment of each state district, but also protected themselves from challengers from their own parties. So you had old school Democrats afraid of Latino Democrat challengers carefully carving the Latino community into pieces (and the challenger's house out of the district). And you had Republicans happy to play the same game to protect their seats despite shifting demographics in their own districts. California Voters FIRST, our initiative, creates a 14 person, politically balanced, diverse Commission to draw the State Assembly, Senate and Board of Equalization districts according to strict rules. For more info, check out http://www.commoncause/ca.

By: Don Quijote

Don Quijote — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:24:44 +0000

In the recent past the main adversaries to these reforms are the Democrats who apparently want to hold onto their current advantage in California.

As soon as Texas & Florida decide to play by the rules, not redistrict in the middle of the census period ,count the votes and stop disenfranchising voters, we can talk about reforming voting in California.

What you are asking for right now is Democratic unilateral disarmament.

By: » Commentary on Governor’s Prop. 93 Endorsement UPDATED The Rose Report: The Rose Institute of State and Local Government

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:42:03 +0000

[...] see D-Day, The Liberal OC, and Beyond Chron, for instance. See also PacoVilla’s CCPOA blog, The Moderate Voice, and Edwards Industry, Policy and Political News. Published on January 15th, 2008 by Matthew J. [...]

By: DLS

DLS — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:35:26 +0000

The way to redistrict is to have contiguous ZIP code areas or US Census tracts.

But with larger states where there are five or more districts, an alternative is to abolish the districts, make the seats “at-large,” and award seats after each election based on proportional representation.

By: Election » Blog Archive » Schwarzenegger Campaigns for Election Reform

Election » Blog Archive » Schwarzenegger Campaigns for Election Reform — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:13:01 +0000

[...] Paul Silver wrote an interesting post today on Schwarzenegger Campaigns for Election ReformHere’s a quick excerptWhile I welcome his leadership on election reform I am less excited about the idea of term limits. The main argument for term limits is that representatives can become detached from their constituents and fall to the influence of … [...]

By: superdestroyer

superdestroyer — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:40:45 +0000

the idea that redistricting (spreading the small number of white swing voters around to as many districts as possible) while change politics in California is laughable. As the white population continues to decline, California is fated to become a one party state. Also, given no term limits, that means that the only relevant elections are the Democratic Primaries in districts where there is no incumbent running for re-election.

As America becomes a one party state, America needs to find a way to operate as a one party state where the ballot box cannot be used to make political changes. Redistricting, public funding, etc will not make up for the changing demographics of the U.S. Initiative and referendum (two things that the ruling Democratic Party despises) .