Sebastiani Revives Reapportionment : This Time, He’s Finding GOP Leaders Decidedly Cool to the Issue

In his wine-making days, Don A. Sebastiani said, it happened every time. “Just when the advertising and PR people got sick of something, it caught on with the public.”

Today, Sebastiani, a renegade Republican assemblyman from Sonoma, said this experience in marketing is the reason why he does not care much that the political Establishment in California is sick of fighting over reapportionment and why he is plunging forward with yet another initiative proposal to realign the boundaries of the state’s 120 legislative districts and its 45 congressional districts.

“We are going ahead. . . . We cannot rest,” Sebastiani said.

His plans, which he said he will disclose in detail Thursday, almost certainly would improve the election chances of Republicans, if he can qualify the package for the ballot and secure voter approval.

Sebastiani, however, has found himself pitted against key leaders of the GOP, who have other ideas and other priorities.

At the behest of the Senate GOP leader, James W. Nielsen of Woodland, the top layer of elected Republicans in the state plans to discuss the upstart Sebastiani and his newest reapportionment drive at a “summit meeting” during the Republican state convention in Sacramento this weekend.

Gov. George Deukmejian, among them, is decidedly cool to the prospect of another reapportionment brawl after futilely spending millions of dollars and untold personal prestige on an unsuccessful GOP reapportionment initiative, Proposition 39, that he sponsored in last November’s election. It was the third straight GOP-backed reapportionment “reform” initiative to fizzle since 1982.

“We’re not very enthusiastic about reapportionment through the initiative process,” a Deukmejian Administration spokesman said. “It drains resources that otherwise could go to voter registration and other party activities.”

Deukmejian, Nielsen and several others said they prefer to push for long-range bipartisan reapportionment reform through the Legislature.

In a speech Tuesday, Deukmejian declared, “I’m not one to put a false face on defeat. But I genuinely believe that despite our loss, we did advance the prospects of reform. . . . I have been encouraged by the discussions we have had with legislative leaders of both parties.

“I believe these discussions now represent our most promising avenue of reform,” Deukmejian added.

For his part, Sebastiani said, he will “carefully listen” to objections of Deukmejian and other Republican party leaders after the convention summit meeting.

“My guess is I will then say, with all due respect and regretfully, I probably will move ahead,” Sebastiani said.

Hands-Off Position

Some party officials are taking a hands-off approach to Sebastiani’s drive.

Assembly GOP leader Pat Nolan of Glendale, for instance, “doesn’t want him to reignite a reapportionment battle,” according to an aide. “But at the same time, having Sebastiani out there, he could well force a quicker legislative solution.”

Under typical circumstances, an assemblyman who will turn just 32 on Friday hardly would be in a position to make leaders of his own party squirm quite so visibly.

But Sebastiani’s dedication to reapportionment has made him something of a folk hero among the conservative rank and file, and he is not taken lightly. After all, Sebastiani dominated the GOP reapportionment agenda in the state two years ago, until a frustrated group of party leaders met at a GOP convention “summit meeting” in October, 1983. Deukmejian chose then to take control of the issue himself, a decision that led to the ill-fated Proposition 39.

Takes Different Tack

Sebastiani’s plan this time will come in two parts, he said, including a proposed amendment to the state Constitution. This is different from the simple statutory reapportionment initiative that Sebastiani advanced in 1983 and that was subsequently blocked from the ballot by the state Supreme Court on grounds that the Constitution forbids more than one redrawing of district lines in a decade. By proposing to amend the Constitution, Sebastiani is seeking to avoid that pitfall again.

The second initiative, Sebastiani said, would offer a fresh set of boundaries for each Senate, Assembly and congressional district.

Under normal circumstances, even if Sebastiani is successful in gathering the required signatures, his package would not go to voters until the 1986 statewide elections. If approved, the new district boundaries would not affect elections until 1988, two years before the national Census, when a completely new reapportionment must be undertaken.

For this reason, Sebastiani said, he hopes to persuade Deukmejian to call a special statewide election this fall so that new districts would be in place for the 1986 elections.