CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS PROPOSITIONS 118, 119 : Voters Could Radically Alter Political Remapping

Imagine baseball with five bases instead of four. Football with a field only 50 yards long. Basketball with an extra hoop at center court.

Changes no less fundamental could be in store for the rules that help determine who represents California voters in the Legislature and Congress.

Two initiatives on the June 5 ballot--Propositions 118 and 119--would transform the way district lines are drawn for elections to the state Assembly and Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. If approved by voters, either measure could lead to a new balance of power in the Legislature and the California delegation in Washington.

Both initiatives take aim at redistricting, a process now the private province of state lawmakers. Under current law, their power to redraw district lines every 10 years is checked only by a brief set of general guidelines in the state Constitution and the potential veto of the governor.

Armed with high-powered computers and sophisticated analyses of voting patterns, a party that controls the Legislature and the governor’s office, as the Democrats did in 1981, can draw lines that solidify its power far into the next decade. The process often produces odd-looking, serpentine districts as the line-drawers scoop in desired neighborhoods to corral clusters of like-minded voters.

But Propositions 118 and 119 would change all that, and the thought has Democrats in a tizzy. They charge that both initiatives are thinly veiled Republican power grabs. What’s more, Democratic leaders claim, the measures would unseat minority and women legislators, who only recently have begun to make gains after decades of being shut out of office.

“It is an insidious plan designed to move . . . power, and it is disguised as good government,” Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco said of the campaign for the two initiatives.

Republicans and some nonpartisan groups tell a different story. They say Democrats have rigged the electoral process to keep incumbents in office; as proof, they note that only nine incumbents have been defeated in California’s 580 legislative and congressional elections since 1982. A fairer system, they maintain, would probably result not only in more Republican officeholders, but more women and minorities as well.

“Our legislators are holding us hostage,” said Ellen Elliott, a leader of the League of Women Voters, which supports Proposition 119. “We have legislators who are less responsive to voters and less focused on resolving major issues, because they know they have a very good chance of being reelected, regardless of how ineffective they may be.”

Both initiatives would place detailed new restrictions on the way district lines are drawn. For instance, they would prohibit districts from jumping certain county boundaries and limit the number of times that cities and counties could be divided. Both measures also include provisions designed to make districts more compact and competitive.

From there, the two proposals diverge.

Proposition 118 leaves redistricting in the hands of legislative negotiators, but requires that any plan receive two-thirds of the votes in each house, the governor’s signature and the approval of state voters. The measure also sets a deadline for the plans to be in place--July 15 in the year after the census--and requires that the proposals and maps be made public before they are approved. If the deadline for approval is missed, the state Supreme Court would handle redistricting.

Proposition 119 is more sweeping. It would create an independent 12-member commission to choose new districts from proposals submitted by registered voters. Ultimately, the commission, whose members would be appointed by a panel of retired appellate court judges, could amend the plans it received and thus draw the lines itself. The Legislature would have no say in the matter.

If both measures pass, the one that garners the most votes would take effect.

Proposition 118 was written by top Republican activists and has strong support from GOP incumbents. Proposition 119 is more of a grass-roots product, sponsored by Republican San Mateo County Supervisor Tom Huening, the League of Women Voters and a handful of Democrats who do not hold state office.

Most Democratic politicians oppose both measures. California Common Cause, the National Organization for Women and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund also oppose them.

Proposition 118 supporters argue that their measure would ensure fairer plans by giving the party not in power--in this case, the Republicans--a chance to participate in redistricting. Allowing the voters to pass judgment on the plan would further check creative line-drawing. And the ballot measure includes restrictions on speech fees and gifts that lawmakers can accept from groups with lobbyists in Sacramento.

“This measure guarantees that the views of the minority party will be taken into account, which should result in some fairness,” said Assembly Republican leader Ross Johnson of La Habra. “The name of the game in the past has been for the majority party to artificially maintain and extend its majority by the drawing of the lines.”

Opponents, however, charge that Proposition 118 would lead to the creation of district lines that protect incumbents of both major parties. By requiring a two-thirds vote in the Legislature, the measure ensures that at least that many seats would be safe from challenge, they say.

“If you require a simple majority vote, then a majority will vote for the plan that gives them safe seats,” said Brenda Robinson, an analyst for Common Cause. “If you require a super-majority, then a super-majority will vote yes if they have safe seats. It guarantees incumbent protection.”

Other critics contend that the measure’s deadline and the automatic referendum it calls for would make it more likely that the redistricting job would be given to the Supreme Court. The court is dominated by appointees of Republican Gov. George Deukmejian.

The Democrats so far have focused more of their venom on Proposition 119, which would remove elected lawmakers from the process. Assembly Speaker Brown has led an attack on the initiative’s backers, and Democratic lawmakers have pressured nonpartisan groups to oppose it.

A consistent theme of Brown’s public statements has been that the measure would cost women and minorities their legislative seats. He contends the proposed guidelines regulating how districts would be drawn would cause such disruption that three Los Angeles seats now held by black women and two Bay Area seats also held by women could change hands.

But at least four of the five seats Brown has identified--those held by Maxine Waters and Teresa Hughes of Los Angeles, Jackie Speier of South San Francisco and Delaine Eastin of Union City--appear to be compact enough to meet the standards of the initiative. The four districts also follow city limits closely--another requirement of the initiative, although Speier and Eastin have districts that cross county lines.

The other district Brown mentions, which is held by Gwen Moore of Los Angeles, follows city boundaries but probably does not meet the compactness test. But, with only minor changes, it could meet both standards.

The problem for the Democrats is that many of those districts already are in jeopardy, because the state’s population has shifted away from older urban areas and into the suburbs. The situation facing Speaker Brown and Assemblywoman Speier illustrates the potential consequences of this trend.

Brown’s central San Francisco district has lost population relative to the rest of the state. Since every district must contain roughly the same number of people after redistricting, the boundaries for Brown’s district probably will be forced to move south or west to pick up the population it needs. But that change could threaten Speier, whose district would be pushed down the San Francisco peninsula, lose Democratic voters and thus confront her with a tougher fight for reelection.

Although Brown insists that both measures would hurt minorities, the backers of Proposition 119 point out that their initiative requires the redistricting plans to meet the standards of the federal Voting Rights Act before they are considered by the commission. The measure also requires that minority communities be neither diluted nor concentrated in a way that diminishes their representation.

With the Democrats in control of redistricting, minority representation has improved little in 15 years, even as the state’s ethnic populations have increased dramatically. In 1975, there were seven blacks, six Latinos and two Asians in the Legislature. Today, there are nine blacks, six Latinos and no Asians.

“The intent of Proposition 119 is to help minorities and women; the way you do that is you provide opportunities for challengers,” said San Mateo County’s Supervisor Huening, the initiative’s sponsor.

Huening and others say that partisanship is the real motivation behind Brown’s opposition. Proposition 119 might threaten the Democrats’ hold on the Assembly, where they control 47 of 80 seats, and in the Senate, where they have 25 of 40 seats.

Indeed, one of the more controversial provisions contained in both initiatives is a requirement that as many districts as possible be “competitive”--defined as containing Democrats and Republicans in proportions that are within 2% of the parties’ statewide share of registered voters.

Since Democrats currently have the edge--50% to 39%--this requirement might appear harmless. But Republicans historically have been able to win almost any district in which Democrats account for fewer than 50% of the registered voters. This is because Democrats tend to be poorer, and they move more often than Republicans, and so each district actually has fewer Democratic voters than the registration rolls suggest.

“If you want to penalize the Democrats for representing poor people, this is the way to do it,” Bruce Cain, a University of California professor and Democratic consultant, said of the criteria in Proposition 119.

So far, public opinion polls show that neither Republican nor Democratic voters know much about the redistricting initiatives. In a Los Angeles Times Poll published in early May, 85% of voters surveyed did not know enough about Proposition 118 to have an opinion, and 88% had no position on Proposition 119.