Anybody know how 77 is doing in the polls so far?

[Tiggeroshii]

Being a strong advocate of this initiative, I want it to win. But how well is it doing 2 months before the election?

[davidinalameda]

1. it's losing

Proposition 77, which would take reapportionment of legislative and congressional districts away from state lawmakers and put it in the hands of a panel of retired judges, also is losing - 46 percent to 32 percent, with 22 percent undecided. It held a similar deficit position in June.

and thank goodness it's losing

1) Voters lose their right to reject redistricting plans before they go into effect.



2) Politicians select the judges to draw their districts for them.



3) Prop 77 costs taxpayers millions each time they reject redistricting plans.



4) Only 3 unelected judges will decide everything! That’s not fair or balanced.


furthermore, it doesn't take in account traditionally under-represented groups in creating districts

I can't see how any Democrat would want this administration to have control over new districts

[Tiggeroshii]

2. This argument leaves a lot out.

First of all, there is fairly drawn out process in deciding these judges who will decide -through detailed and specific guidelines how these lines will be drawn. Our legislature will determine through a bipartisan committeeee the 12 Democratic Judges and 12 Republican judges who are to unanimously decide each retired judge. This is, in my eyes, a thorough process that will take away the powers of redistricting from the incumbants within their districts? When do we ever see THEIR redistricting plans in the first place? Never.

At lease these people will have rules...

BTW, thanks for the response - I believe there's time to save it, but people don't know enough about, in my eyes, to really like it.

[mitchtv]

3. why should the minority party have equal representation?

I also understand the judges will be strictly linited in construction of the districts. I vote we wait til we have an elected governor and an elected SOS. This idea has been rejected time and again by Californians. It has been put forward to Republicans to upset anothe D government. I Vote no. Sorry, I can't bring myself to vote for more R representatives. Not Fair you say? Neither is Texas or PA.

[JDPriestly]

4. It's a bad idea all around.

First, we have had mostly Republican governors, so most of the judges in California are conservatives, often ex-prosecutors. We don't need to have them gerrymander our state. Second, we need to say "No" once and for all to Schwarzenegger's attempt to bully his way to more power. He does not understand our form of government. He does not value the concept of separation of powers. He refuses to work with the legislature. He is wasting our precious tax revenue on this initiative which we don't need.

The current districts, gerrymandered and crazy as they are, were agreed to by all but a few members of the legislature. It is probably about as good as we will be able to get. No realistic Democrat could possibly be for Prop. 77. Think Texas. Think Tom Delay. Think how naive, idealistic Democrats walk into neo-con traps. Leave things as they are. The only person who is really unhappy with the status quo is Schwarzenegger. And, personally, I want him to be just as miserable as he can be.

[Tiggeroshii]

11. Tom Delay was working out of revenge

This is working for fairness.

[davidinalameda]

5. we see their plans when they're introduced to the Senate and the Assembly

the state legislature has rules as well

why should we take away the power from the legislature

we have term limits, another wonderful policy that screws over the voters, and the districts that exist in 2000 won't be represented by the same people in 2010, and the districts will have to be redrawn then as well

I, for one, don't really care that no district changed hands in the last election. I like my representatives and I want them in office.

Do proponents of Prop 77 ever think that people like me want to keep our current reps and we wouldn't vote against them?

[mitchtv]

6. shouldn't it be 12 Dem judges and 8 Pukes?

77 gives the parity, that they don't rate.

[cascadiance]

7. Or maybe even throw in a green party judge too?

It seems like greens have pulled 5% in many races in this state.

[Tiggeroshii]

8. I would think that maybe some people would want contiguous lines

I have trouble with thinking that the rest of my district is 30 miles every direction away from me with lines drawn every which way to keep my rep in power despite a fair election. You would probably get your rep back if this initiative passes only if he is qualified, convincing, clear and tries.

[mitchtv]

9. tell me

Why should the minority party have an equal number of Judges? All Fairness for pukes, Just like they were for the minority party in TX?

[Tiggeroshii]

10. The point isn't to give anybody an advantage with this.

That was the point in Texas, clearly, without even thinking about it, and over the past several years, that's been done to Rethugs too, Delay considered it payback.

This is an initiative clearly meant to redraw the districts as they are to make each one far more competitive, balancing out the handling of power of party with each district. You said you liked your Congressman, what have they done that you like so much? Are they just nice and friendly, and take care of your needs, or do they vote the way you want and stand for things you represent? If it's the latter or both, they should at least give another guy a fair shot at the district rather than being guaranteed it every election. Why should elected officials be so... unelected? It's more like an appointment, really.

[mitchtv]

12. the point is , that it DOES give advantage

to a minority party.THEY DO NOT RATE 50% OF THE PANEL. I would prefer to wait til we can verify our elections. I would prefer to break SD/Orange counties and add it to La county just as was done in TX and go after each and every R district and add LA neighborhoods to them. Sorry but the Pukes don't care about "fair" They would have me and all my people in camps in the desert if they could.We can affore to wait. I can't believe you are actually for a measure that gives an un earned parity to the PUKE party. Fairness is 10-25 at San Quentin

[Tiggeroshii]

13. So screw them just like they screwed us?

Eye for an eye till we run out?

[mitchtv]

14. I don't see the point in being more than fair to them

cause the minute they gain an advantage, they will use it against the Dems. Fairness will not be an issue. They play for keeps and you want to help them gain more seats??? We can ill afford that. Let's see them restrict Ohio on good faith. Any Dem would be out of their mind to give a 33% party 50% of the representation-That is not Fair1

[Tiggeroshii]

15. Well.

The LA Times repeats the concerns of the Republicans in the State as afraid of losing in a Democrat leaning state. If all is fair in the districts with fair lines being drawn, wouldn't it give the DEMS an advantage through the majority of Democrats already living here?

[cascadiance]

16. I say no redistricting until we get "clean elections" put into law!

So we have a slight advantage in the way the current districting is laid out! They have a huge advantage the way that campaign finance laws are structured (that are structured to institutionalize and legitimize corruption of our Democracy). Clean elections will do just as much as new redistricting rules, to push the incumbents into not taking their re-election for granted. Perhaps we can make a package deal of it somehow, so we get a bit of fairness for BOTH sides, not just give in on one side unilaterally and expect them to play fair! As a party that needs every advantage we can get, we can ill afford to throw things away right now.

[mitchtv]

17. How sensible

Compared to me with the paleo Dem approach. You make a lot of sense, Usually you cantell a proposition's merits simply by seeing who proposes, and who opposes a measure. I am simply not interested in ANYTHING they propose,because you know, as sure as the sun rises, that they are up to no good. You know also, that it is a lousy piece of legislation.I guess I'm just getting old.

[Oerdin]

19. Take a look at this.

http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/cong_dist/cd108_named/ind_loc_pdf/CA_CD49loc.pdf

That's a map of California's Congressional districts. Take a look at District 23; notice how it snakes its way through four counties hugging the coast and never going more then a few miles inland? Hell, around Isla Vista & Goleta (areas near Santa Barbara where I used to live which are filled with many liberal & poor college students) District 23 is officially 10feet wide in order to not get any of those left leaning college students into the district. Why does that happen? Simple because Lois Capps ( fairly conservative Democrat)who gerrymandered that district only wanted the rich white voters who were wealthy enough to own beach front homes while the Democratic incumbants of the 24th and 22nd districts want to ditch those conservatives so they'd have secure and noncompetitive seats.

The problem is that fucks the voters and it is stupid to have a 300 mile long district which snakes along the coast for four counties picking up wealthy white enclaves while shrinking to just ten feet wide (covering only the public beach but not picking up the apartments which are right infront of the beach) in the poorer areas. Something needs to be done to stop such abuses.

Now check out District 49 where they merged the wealthy parts of three different counties to create a nice safe Republian set. Seats 45 & 4 dumped all of their republians there so they'd never have to face a serious challenge and nor would the Republican in 49. Then there's Duncan Hunter from the 52 district who cut a deal with Bob Filner of the 51st to move the border areas of San Diego county out of 52 and into 51. Why'd they do that? Simple Hunter is a Republican and didn't want Mexicans in his district since Mexicans tend to vote Democratic while Filner wanted a create a safer district for himself.

The end result of all this gerrymandering is that not a single seat changed hands last election and not a single incumbant was unseated dispite everyone's poll numbers being in the toilet. Even incumbants who were polling with approval ratings in the 30's got reelected. That's how safe and undefeatable this rigged districts are. Can we really call ourselves a democracy when voting has lost all meaning because the system is rigged? Do you think that is good for the country or for the state of California?

Obviously, the Republicans are offering fair districting method not because they really want to (they'd much prefer to rig it in their favor, however, there only chance to ungerrymander things is to be fair and appeal to voters' sense of fairness. I have lost all hope that the Democratic incumbants will ungerrymander this system as multiple times in the past they've defeated redistricting measures claiming that they really will ungerrymander things sometime in the future but right now just isn't a good time. I'm tired of the excuses and I'm tired of waiting. I want my vote to mean something and the incumbants have proved they can't be trusted so I'm going to support the only measure which will stop the politicians playing games with the districts.

[cascadiance]

20. Oerdin, I think many agree that the districting process now isn't perfect.

and probably needs reform. But there are just as many other things like campaign financing, that are just as much in need of reform, if not moreso, that will ALSO help voters change incumbants as well, but which aren't inherently potentially unfair to Democratic candidates, if not written properly. This leglislation was written by Republicans. Even though Republicans are a minority (based on overall population), it mandates and *even* distribution between the two major parties to decide on the judge's panel to arbitrate these boundaries. Can't you see the unfairness of that? Why should they get 50% of these votes, when they don't have 50% of the population. Well, if you're saying that you want to be fair to the minority, then what about the Green Party? What about the Libertarians. Should each minority party get an "equal" representation on this board? If each party had an "equal" number of votes (and not have them dependent on the population proportionality of what they represent) you'd REALLY not be representing the population fairly now would you?

I'm all for also reforming affirmative action too. It's not without flaws. But would I vote in favor of legislation that Republicans wrote? Probably not!

Let us first fix other problems first, and not create more problems for Democrats to be fairly represented because other problems remain unsolved (i.e. campaign financing), which, given our power currently in the political landscape, will make it nearly impossible to fix those other issues if the Republicans have too much power (which many would argue they already have too much anyway).

If your main concern is not being able to vote the "old guys out", then I would argue that other legislation would help do this too (clean elections, etc.). If it's something other than that, then please explain. Redistricting is not a black and white issue. If you overly homogenize districts, minorities never get represented adequately. If you overly stratify districts to one population segment, as you said, you don't make it competitive so that other voices can be heard (if you're just relying on redistricting to keep reps accountable). I would argue that there should be ways to ensure that minorities are represented over a large stretch of the population, and have ways to make districts competitive at the same time. Hopefully formulas can be made that everyone will agree with and be fair in representing minorities and at the same time make districts competitive, without being too complex and "gerrymandered". I don't think this legislation is going to solve that problem though.

Vote NO on 77!

This gets back to a beef I've always had with the California proposition system. They try to appeal to citizens to vote a certain way through heavy emotions on one issue, sensing that Californians want to be heard by their politicians on a certain issue. Yet they hide the "devil in the details" with the proposition language such that it doesn't really do what many people would approve of and may in fact do the opposite of what many who might vote for it might want. I've been wanting to see a reform so that each proposition has two separate components (votes):

1) a "mandate" vote - this would be where people could "vote" on their emotional stance on an issue (which might be described with say a single paragraph or less of verbage that is hopefully understood by all, and doesn't leave ambiguity in its results. There would be no consequences in terms of a law with this vote. It would just send a message to the legislative bodies that Californians feel a certain way on a given issue and would like action taken in a certain way. Perhaps there might be some binding in the sense that if this is voted on favorably, it forces the legislature to look at it and come up with legislation on its own to support it (and perhaps demand a second vote to approve it).

2) a "detail" vote - this would be the "meat" of a proposition, and the actual legal language that would describe the laws enacted to support what the mandate vote is demanding. If it is well written, both in terms of being understood well by voters, and in terms of being good law, etc. that matches what the "mandate" language says, voters would vote for this also, and would show true popular consent to make this state law. However, many voters may feel that the "devil in the details" is something they don't understand or like, even though they might support the "mandate" of the first part of the vote. So they might vote "yes" on the first vote and "no" on this vote to indicate to the proposition writers that they need to go back to the drawing board and get some better and more understandable legislation before the masses will vote yes on it.

Doing it this way will leave no ambiguity on wheter voters feel a certain way on an issue, and also no ambiguity if they feel a proposition is poorly written. A "Yes/Yes" would indicate strong support for both the issue and the legislation. A "No/No" would indicate that neither the issue or the legislation is supported by the public, and a "Yes/No" would indicate that they like the stance on an issue that a proposition is advocating, but not how it's being implemented.

If the redistricting proposition were written this way, we could give a "yes/no" vote, to indicate that we want redistricting done better than it is now, but we aren't endorsing the language of this one as a solution.

[Oerdin]

23. We do need campaign finance reform.

Reform which actually does take the big money out of politics. That's a federal issue and I don't see either party taking a serious go at that in my life time. I'm going to try to help solve a problem that might actually have some chance in succeeding.

[cascadiance]

24. They've already got a good start in Arizona and Maine

and they are shooting for it here locally in San Diego soon. I anticipate a local ballot measure around 2006 election. If we can get it successfully done in local areas first, and we get the right party in charge (with a lot of local constituency happy with local elections to implement this nationally), I think it could happen sooner than you think.

I think it really HAS to happen soon nationally for us to save our Democracy. But that is where I think we should focus our energies. If we do the redistricting now, we lose that much more power by putting more Republicans in power to get real campaign finance reform passed any time soon. The Dems are by no means immune from the problems of campaign finance reform, but they aren't IN BED with corporations to the extent that the Republicans are! With them in charge, it will never happen!

[Oerdin]

18. You're wrong.

"I don't see the point in being more than fair to them cause the minute they gain an advantage, they will use it against the Dems"

Fairness is always an issue and I for one want to be on the side that is actually concerned with fighting the good fight instead of just fighting. It's about proving we are better then them and leading by example.

[mitchtv]

21. Fairness- Republican?

Sorry, the English language does not permit these two words in the same sentence. Minority party, in a democracy , doesn't get 50% of the panel.

[Oerdin]

22. The idea.

Is to make the panal bipartisan while the executive commitee of three members would likely have two members from the majority and one from the minority. If you bothered to read the proposal before ranting against it then you'd already know that.

Nonpolitical people are the only ones who would be allowed to sit on the panal of 24 and anyone who ever ran for office or was employed by a political party would be eneligable. Everyone on the panal has to be unannomously decided by the four majority and minority leaders in the state house but the rules defining how districts would be set up pretty much take all subjectiveness out of the equation. It strictly spells out how districts would be set up on a geographical basis so these people really don't get to do anything more then carry out predetermined rules which everyone knows ahead of time and which the public fully gets to see and comment upon throughout the process.

And that's a far sight better then the system we have now.

[cascadiance]

25. But don't you see how that's even more unfair to other political parties?

The Green Party, since they routinely pull down around 5% of the vote, should get one person on that 20 person panel, don't you think? Why should they give their vote to a Republican? How is that fair? You If you're bound to just being "even" between the two main parties, how is that fair (not only to the majority Democrats, but to other third parties who get significant numbers of voters themselves who are unrepresented in that process).

Rules themselves can also be subjective as well. Though I like the idea of having rules that aren't bent by subjectivity by a majority, I also think that it should be a well thought out negotiation, instead of one party writing them up and making them sound fair to others when it really favors that party who wrote them.

[Oerdin]

26. I agree.

There most certainly is room for improvement but we've been waiting 20 years for the Democratic Party to offer their version of an ungerrymandered state and all we've gotten is the incumbants in the party defending gerrymandering everytime anyone tries to reform. I'm will to sign just about anything right now because I know we'll never get better out of the party in charge.

I find it funny that some of the people who complain the most about Dianne Feinstein are also the vocal supporters of the gerrymandered system which allows her to do what ever she wants and never worry about not getting reelected. That's not you Cal but a few others fall into that catagory.

[cascadiance]

27. I'm for challenging incumbants when warranted...

If they're doing a bad job, there should be ways to present better alternatives to the person in power. Also, if they are doing a good job, they should be able to stay in too and let us benefit from their added experience (which is why I'm against arbitrary term limits).

I really think that getting in "clean elections" campaign financing rules will do more to allow well-meaning and not corporate corrupt candidates to challenge those that are, which might help us rid ourselves of Feinstein too. I really don't think just tweaking the rules to do redistricting will solve the fundamental problems of how people get nominated and their campaigns funded, which weeds out so many potentially decent candidates that want to represent US.

Be patient, and if you really want to help, go to clean elections campaign here in San Diego. There's a meeting tonight of the steering committee here, and some speaker training this coming weekend. They really want to get this going for 2006. If your thirst is for newer politicians to replace the older ones, I truely believe that this is a BETTER solution than the one that Arnie and the Rethuglicans are trying to throw on us and further solidify the right wing's political control over the whole country. If it's successful in San Diego, I think that's a launching point towards getting it done statewide. We really don't want to pass 77. There will be another day to fix our local elections, with better legislation!