Stunned State GOP Looks to Voters for Rescue on Redistricting in ’90

Reeling from a double-dose of New Year’s bad news--first from the governor and now from the Supreme Court--Republicans are looking--anxiously--to voters to save the hide of the California GOP in the upcoming 1990-91 reapportionment.

Several competing ballot initiatives are already well along in the drafting process as uneasy Republican Party leaders ponder the possibility that Democrats could control not only both houses of the Legislature but also the governor’s office after the 1990 elections.

With such control and Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Democrats could be virtually unfettered in drawing district boundaries as they see fit for the Legislature and California’s ever-expanding congressional delegation after the 1990 consensus. And with the power of the pencil in reapportionment, history shows, comes the edge for one party in perpetuating its partisan grip on seats in Sacramento and Washington for another 10 years.

So Republicans, along with like-minded supporters in business and academia, are hurriedly circulating draft proposals for a June, 1990, ballot initiative campaign to reduce or eliminate the discretion of elected officials in drawing district boundary lines. Four, and perhaps more, competing measures are in circulation among key GOP figures, including one that bears the stamp of the leadership of the state party.

Outgoing party Chairman Robert W. Naylor called the issue “a close second” to electing a Republican governor in GOP priorities for 1990.

“Come hell or high water there is going to be something on the ballot in 1990 and it will be another donnybrook because the Democrats in the Legislature cannot let it pass,” GOP reapportionment expert and political consultant Joe Shumate said.

Tuesday’s court ruling ended an epic GOP challenge of the Democratic reapportionment that resulted from the 1980 consensus, and seemed to dash any lingering Republican hopes that the high court would tighten standards of partisan discretion. This followed an earlier blow to the party when its two-term governor, George Deukmejian, announced that he would not see a third term, leaving Republicans scurrying for a blue-ribbon candidate.

Reapportionment is now enacted like any other law by simple majority votes of the Legislature and signature of the governor.

Republicans have failed in previous challenges to the 1980s reapportionment, both in the courts and through a pair of costly and bitterly contested ballot initiatives in 1982 and 1984. These sought to strip the Legislature of reapportionment powers and create independent commissions to do the work.

In view of the past defeats, Naylor said the leading contender among competing ideas for a 1990 GOP ballot initiative is one that would entrust reapportionment to the Legislature but would require “super” majorities in both houses to pass a plan, perhaps calling for a two-thirds majority. Alternatively, he said, the final draft of the measure might call for an automatic voter referendum on any plan enacted into law.

In either case, lawmakers would be restricted by terms of a tightly drawn set of guidelines in the proposed initiative. Such guidelines might force two Assembly districts to fit conterminously within a single state Senate district up and down California, and restrict the number of ways that cities and counties can be divided up into districts.

Besides the 80 districts for Assembly members and 40 for state senators, the 1990 reapportionment will decide the districts of a congressional delegation that is expected to swell from 45 to 50 or 51 to reflect population gains in California.

At a Sacramento Press Club appearance Tuesday, Deukmejian acknowledged the GOP insider talk about a 1990 initiative but struck a standoffish tone.

“I would be happy to talk about it to individuals who are interested in it, but I think it’s a very difficult subject we learned from . . . a few years ago. It’s a very difficult topic to be able to get the average voter to relate to,” he said.

Deukmejian and Assembly Republican leader Ross Johnson of La Habra both disclosed their interest in possibly adding to any such initiative broader elements of so-called “legislative reforms” that might make the package easier to sell. Neither official, however, was specific about the nature of such reform proposals.

Separately, San Mateo County Supervisor Tom Huening is circulating among GOP officials and reform-minded groups an initiative that would try once again to strip the power of reapportionment from the Legislature. In this case, the task would be given to a jury of citizens selected at random under criteria similar to that of a grand jury.

Times staff writers Jerry Gillam and George Skelton contributed to this story.