GOP Awakens to Risks of Redistricting

The two dozen Republicans who represent California in Congress usually give far closer scrutiny to Democratic plots on Capitol Hill than those in the state Capitol.

With good reason: Republicans here have their hands full managing a precarious majority in the House of Representatives and a somewhat firmer majority in the Senate against the maneuvers of a wily Democratic president.

Meanwhile, their GOP counterparts in Sacramento are in the political wilderness: out of power in the state Senate, the state Assembly and the governor’s office.

But suddenly, it seems, many members of the Republican congressional delegation have realized how unilateral Democratic control in Sacramento directly threatens their own political existence--and, under some feverish scenarios, GOP control of Congress.

That realization has prompted anxious meetings in Washington and cross-country phone calls. The first tentative fingers are even searching to lay blame if it turns out the delegation acted too late.

“Who Lost California?” was the headline last week on an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, a prominent conservative voice.

The fuss is over an arcane but fundamental building block of politics--the process known as redistricting. Every 10 years, after the national census, Congress uses new population figures to divvy up 435 House seats among the states. (California, which now has 52, expects at least a couple more after the 2000 census.) And states use the figures to redraw boundaries for legislative and congressional districts as well.

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In 2001, if Democrats keep their lock on the state Legislature, they will be the state’s political cartographers. The last time one party wielded such power, when Democrats held sway in 1981, Republicans were forced into some nasty corners.

Rep. David Dreier of San Dimas, then in his first term, was forced to run for reelection in a primary campaign in a new district also occupied by a Republican incumbent, Rep. Wayne Grisham. Dreier prevailed and went on to become chairman of the House Rules Committee. But no one in today’s GOP delegation wants to be left standing when this game of musical chairs is played again in two years.

By some estimates, a wholly Democratic map could squeeze several Republicans out of office--including such obvious targets as Reps. James E. Rogan of Glendale and Brian Bilbray of San Diego, assuming they survive the 2000 election. Joe Shumate, a Republican consultant who advised then-Gov. Pete Wilson on the 1991 redistricting, says an “all-out gerrymander” could net the Democrats a dozen new seats. That could be crucial nationwide. Right now, a swing of just six seats in the House would catapult Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) to the speaker’s chair.

So, the Republicans ask, what to do? One answer is to try next year to capture the state Assembly, where they are now behind 47 to 32, or state Senate, where they lag 25 to 15. To hedge Republican bets, another idea would be to go to voters directly with a ballot initiative to yank the map making power out of the Legislature’s hands.

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That is what brought Palo Alto businessman Ron K. Unz, a Republican who sponsored the successful 1998 anti-bilingual education initiative, to an urgent lunch date with the delegation late last month on Capitol Hill. Unz, who had been rebuffed in three previous attempts this spring to talk with the delegation, laid out his plan to avoid what he called political annihilation for the GOP: Ask voters next March to approve a package of campaign finance reforms along with a measure to give redistricting power to a neutral panel of retired judges.

Unz, who has drafted an initiative to do just that, said in an interview that he would not go ahead with it if he failed to get the party’s backing. He offered to support any other initiative the delegation would propose. The catch is that time is running out to put a measure on the March ballot (when high numbers of Republican voters are expected to turn out for the presidential primary). Several hundred thousand voter signatures, obtained at a high cost, would be due by late August.

But the delegation balked at some of Unz’s campaign finance ideas, including a provision for public funding of campaigns. Rep. William M. Thomas of Bakersfield, a senior member and the delegation’s point man on redistricting, rounded up support for another proposal that would cut state legislators’ salaries (which were recently raised) and give redistricting power to the state Supreme Court.

It was unclear how much Republican--indeed, Democratic--support such a measure might garner. The Journal’s editorial called it weak but better than nothing. Some GOP state legislators were said to be upset at a proposed pay cut.

Thomas, in a statement released by a political organization called People’s Advocate, recalled how the late Democratic Rep. Phil Burton of San Francisco had compared the redrawn 1981 map to “modern art.”

“We don’t want to contribute to modern art,” Thomas said. “We want to contribute to the people’s right to fair and free elections.”