CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS BALLOT MEASURES : Brown Calls Redistricting Propositions GOP ‘Fraud’

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, in an effort to undercut support for two ballot measures that could threaten his grip on the Assembly’s top leadership post, pledged on Tuesday not to redraw legislative and congressional district lines without first submitting the plan to an advisory panel.

But a spokesman for one of the ballot measures called Brown’s promise a meaningless “scam” and predicted that the powerful San Francisco Democrat would abandon the idea as soon as the June 5 election is over.

Brown, speaking to reporters at a Capitol news conference, described Propositions 118 and 119 as “frauds and bogus efforts” by Republican lawmakers to seize power from the Democrats.

Proposition 118 would require that any redistricting plan be approved by two-thirds votes in each house of the Legislature, signed by the governor and ratified by the voters. Proposition 119 would create an independent commission to draw new district lines after the 1990 census is completed.

Brown alleges that both measures are designed to aid Republicans by concentrating ethnic minorities into a few districts and limiting the number of times districts can cross city and county lines.

Current law allows the party in power to draw the lines with few restrictions and pass them into law with a majority vote and the governor’s signature.

Legislators, Brown said, should continue to be free to vote for new districts that serve their own interests and those of their constituents, just as they vote on other issues.

Brown, however, said the process would be improved by having a commission review the proposed lines before they are voted on. He said the commission would include representatives of groups and individuals supporting Proposition 119, including the League of Women Voters, the Chamber of Commerce, and industrialist David Packard.

Said Brown: “That group of citizens would give an advisory opinion on whether or not we’ve done the best job we possibly can, whether or not there’s been any game-playing for maximum political advantage for one party or the other, whether or not there has in fact been a total skewing of the process to achieve one goal for one person, whether or not there has been a clear desire to disenfranchise a certain collection of people.”

The commission would have no power of its own, but with its public comments could induce the Legislature to act responsibly, Brown said.

“Just the weight of public opinion alone would force legislators who may wish to engage in excesses to cease from doing that,” Brown said. “It certainly would force those of us who want to always appear to be responsible to put forth a plan that could stand that kind of inspection.”

The current congressional lines, drawn in 1982 with Brown’s active support, would not have passed muster with such a commission, he said. “It would have been difficult if not impossible to totally justify some of the line-drawing in that kind of an arena,” Brown said.

The late Rep. Phil Burton (D-San Francisco), who drew the lines, later called them “modern art.”

Brown’s proposal was ridiculed by a spokesman for the Proposition 119 campaign, who said it was the sign of a “desperate” politician.

“It’s another scam,” Bob Marks said. “This really shows that he thinks the people of California are stupid. Whatever deals he promises to make with the public now will fade away very quickly once this election is over.”