Prop. 77: No harm, no foul

THE NOV. 8 special election shouldn’t be happening at all. But since it is, Proposition 77 ought to be on the ballot.

Proposition 77, sponsored primarily by Ted Costa of the anti-tax group People’s Advocate, would take the job of drawing new congressional and legislative district boundaries away from members of the Legislature and give it to a panel of retired judges.

Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer is suing to knock it off the ballot because of an apparent clerical error, prompting accusations that the Democratic attorney general is playing political games with the measure’s sponsors and its chief supporter, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The measure deserves an up-or-down decision by the voters. The drawing of new district lines after the 2000 census was so politically biased -- with Republicans and Democrats in collusion -- that not a single seat in the Assembly, the state Senate or in California’s 53 congressional districts changed parties in the 2004 election. The situation is so intolerable that the measure has gathered considerable support from a public that usually yawns at such inside political matters.

As a proposed constitutional amendment, the initiative required 598,105 valid petition signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot. In fact, the Costa campaign submitted 950,000 signatures. The problem is that the version submitted to Lockyer and the one circulated by petition-gatherers had different wording. A clerk gave the wrong copy to Lockyer, sponsors said. They called the differences stylistic and not of real substance.

Not so, argued Lockyer in suing Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to keep the measure off the ballot. The use of different petitions “cannot be condoned or tolerated,” Lockyer argued, saying it could lead to bait-and-switch tactics someday. He’s right, and officials need to guard against that possibility in the future. But there was no attempt to mislead signers in this case. The version of Proposition 77 on the petition signed by registered voters is the same as the one on the ballot. The issue is before a district court judge in Sacramento.

The special election is being held because the governor insists on immediate action for his reform proposals, but none is of such urgency that it could not have waited for the next scheduled election, next June. As long as we’re stuck with the election, it should include all the measures that qualified for the ballot.

Historically, California courts have been reluctant to remove measures once they have qualified with the valid signatures of hundreds of thousands of voters. That’s a precedent they should follow with Proposition 77 as well.