More on 77
The bleeding-heart Berkeley liberal in me hates the thought of joining Arnold, but I have yet to hear a compelling reason to oppose proposition 77. Speak Out California!, who've been popping up in the advertisement sidebars of various liberal bloggers, offer these words on the "Redistricting power grab":
With all of the problems our state is currently facing, this initiative is merely a distraction. Redistricting should only be done in connection with the next Census, and only then should we decide how that process should unfold. This proposal rushes the process for the 2006 election, and disregards the diversity of California by putting redistricting in the hands of retired judges, who are predominantly white men.
I'm having a hard time finding a group photo of my state senate, but I'm fairly confident that redistricting is already predominantly in the hands of white men. And while it's unfortunate this initiative couldn't appear on the ballot during a census year, I think it's ridiculous to presume that Californians are too wrapped up in other political issues to carefully assess the prop as it appears.
These guys are even more shrill. I don't understand how people can, with a straight face, argue that a panel of judges [cue scary voice] "selected by politicians" would be any more partisan than the politicians themselves.
Comments
It's just different opinions of a collective action problem. Gerrymandering needs to stop, but that can generally only happen when the parties willingly hurt themselves in their strongholds. Why should Democrats disarm first when the worst offenders are Republicans (see also: Texas)?
Posted by: tom | November 7, 2005 06:46 AM
While that's certainly a concern, I think we need to take the moral high ground on this one. California prides itself on leading the country on "crazy ideas" like emission controls, so hopefully other states will follow.
And besides, it's not clear that the balance of power will shift all that much. If anything, it will probably lead to more moderate Republicans and fewer wingnuts.
Posted by: jeff | November 7, 2005 10:38 AM
Dude. Judge Wapner has been on TV the past week telling us : "No on 77...no on 77...no on 77".
How much more compelling can you get?
Posted by: joe | November 8, 2005 01:07 PM