In 2008 the voters of California passed Prop 11, which took away the job of (re) drawing electoral district lines from the legislators, and handed it to a "citizen's commission" consisting of 14 non-political, qualified Californians.
The commission is still the process of being formed. They would start work next year based on the 2010 Census data.
But even before Prop 11 took any meaningful effect, some people want to repeal it all (Prop 27) while others want to add to it (Prop 20). This is ridiculous.
Prop 11 only affected state level districting, leaving the line drawing for US Congress with the state legislature. Now Prop 20 wants to move that responsibility to the citizen's commission as well. Whereas Prop 27 basically wants to restore pre-2008 status quo (while conceding a bit and adding some constraints on the legislature on how they can slice and dice districts).
My initial reaction was, don't tamper with the 2008 decision even before we see the results. So reject both 20 and 27. However, I learn that in the last decade, the geographical distribution of California's population has undergone a very significant change (Central Valley and the South have grown a lot, while the coastal areas have stayed put or slightly shrunk. Also, California's proportion of population to the total US population may have actually shrunk, and so California may lose a seat or two in the US Congress). This makes Prop 20 interesting. I'd like to reduce the chances of politicians redrawing these lines based purely on political and self-serving considerations. (For example, the democrats who are in control of Sacramento would surely get rid of any strong republican district).
So, I am going to go with a YES! on Prop 20 and a NO! on Prop 27.
The Blog Moves On
7 years ago
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