So is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger REALLY someone who is not under the thumb of either political party?
We’ll know very soon, according to the Los Angeles Times:
SACRAMENTO — Worried about losing clout in Congress, influential Republicans in Washington are telling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that he should drop his effort to redraw congressional voting districts in time for next year’s elections and limit his focus to reshaping the state Legislature.
National Republican Party leaders — even Schwarzenegger’s closest ally in the congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) — are pressing the governor to exempt Congress from his map-making.
Of COURSE: so political principles are important…providing they don’t interfere with YOUR grip on power. Are we being cynical? No, read on:
The fear is that tinkering with the California congressional boundaries could jeopardize Republican control of the U.S. House. By some estimates, the state’s 20-person GOP congressional delegation opposes the governor’s effort 4 to 1.
The Republican backlash underscores a reality of redistricting: What’s most important to incumbents is ensuring their own survival. Even with California Republicans confined to minority status in both the legislative and congressional delegations, many members would rather keep the existing lines than gamble on a plan that could plunk them in unfriendly districts where they would have trouble getting reelected.
Schwarzenegger has made redistricting a centerpiece of his 2005 agenda, contending that the lines now drawn protect incumbents to such a degree that races are no longer competitive and parties stand virtually no chance of losing seats they control. He would sooner scuttle redistricting altogether than agree to a compromise in which Congress is spared, the governor’s aides said recently.
Indeed: many Californians (including yours truly) voted for Schwarzenegger not because he was a celebrity but because he was a different kind of politico who didn’t fit an easy partisan classification and was bitterly opposed by liberal Democrats and distrusted and opposed by many conservative Republicans. He won the independents while sawing off many Democratic votes and getting a good chunk of GOP votes.
He was elected because he promised to bring about long needed and difficult changes — some of which will now get him boiling hot political water (like going back on promises on education funding which will make some who supported him reconsider if he runs for re-election).
The bottom line: if he presses for reorganization and exempts the GOPers because they don’t want to lose Congress he will seem to many to be just one more hypocritical political hack. Quite a few (of us) will then vote and probably work against him since that would indicate his grand plan was not just to change the way business is done but to change it to bolster one party. Here’s more:
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has told the governor’s aides that he would like to see California’s congressional voting districts untouched until after the 2010 census — the normal timetable for the decennial redrawing of voting districts — according to a person close to the Schwarzenegger administration. Tracey Schmitt, an RNC spokeswoman, declined to discuss such a conversation, saying, “We’re still in the information-gathering stage.”
If Schwarzenegger stands his ground, congressional Republicans may have the option of supporting a state ballot initiative later this year that would excuse Congress from any mid-decade redistricting effort.
Such a measure was submitted to the state last month by David Gilliard, a Sacramento political consultant who has discussed it with members of the state’s congressional delegation. Before it could go before voters, Gilliard’s proposal would need to pass review in the state attorney general’s office, and then he would need to gather about 600,000 valid signatures.
James Joyner has this convincing take on it:
Schwarzenegger’s motivation here is far from pure–he’s essentially trying to create a system that will help him enact his own agenda, even if it results in diminution of his party’s influence at the national level. Mehlman is also right that, absent extraordinary circumstances, custom dictates redrawing the lines only after reapportionment.
Still, I have to agree…that modern computer-assisted gerrymandering has had negative consequences for our political system. Having partisan legislatures supervise the drawing of lines for maximum advantage has pernicious consequences and has certainly contributed to the increased level of partisan rancor in Congress. When all seats are safe, so long as one tows the party line, elections become less meaningful. Further, it almost guarantees that rabid ideologues will fill most seats, making consensus building increasingly difficult.
Will Arnold pass this test? Or will he fold and protect the GOP? If he gives into GOP pressures it would give his agenda the aura of a plan more calculated to defuse the Democratic majority and protect the GOP than a real effort at reform — where the chips fall where they may.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.