Schwarzenegger’s Risky Scribble

When asked why his team didn’t throw more passes, a legendary football coach said that when you throw a pass, three things can happen -- and two of them are bad.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is preparing to lob an initiative right over the heads of California’s legislators to change the way district lines are drawn. Rather than allow incumbent legislators to be the political map-makers, he wants retired judges to do the job. The results, he contends, would be fewer safe districts and more moderates -- Republican and Democratic -- in the Legislature who’d be willing to compromise on issues vital to the state.

But if history is a guide, “independent” reapportionment wouldn’t take the politics out of the process, nor would it spawn a rush of moderate lawmakers. More important, a new state political map would not alter the political dynamics that have created a polarized state government.

Twice since 1970, the reapportionment chore was given to independent panels of masters made up of retired judges.

In 1971, Democratic lawmakers insisted on protecting their legislative majorities. Republican legislators, backed by Gov. Ronald Reagan, demanded a “fair” reapportionment -- that is, one that would improve their electoral odds. Reagan vetoed the Legislature’s plan.

With no new maps in place for the 1972 elections, the California Supreme Court ruled that legislative seats be contested within the old district lines and that the new lines vetoed by Reagan be used for congressional races (the 1970 census gave California seven more seats). Democrats gained some seats in the Legislature but not enough to override Reagan’s vetoes.

Reenter the Supreme Court in 1973. It appointed a panel of special masters to settle the dispute. Most observers believed that the panel’s map would not dramatically shift the partisan alignment in either the Legislature or the state’s congressional delegation. They were wrong. The new districts turned out to be more Democrat-friendly than the lines Democratic legislators had drawn for themselves, and, in part, helped the party pick up seats at all levels in the 1974 elections.

In September 1991, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed the reapportionment plan produced by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and sent the job to the Republican-dominated state Supreme Court. Wilson bet that his party would fare better in the jurists’ hands than in Democratic ones.

A panel of three retired judges created highly competitive districts, and Republicans were certain they would benefit. Some even speculated that the party would gain control of the Assembly, which had been in Democratic hands for more than 20 years.

But nothing happens in a vacuum. The nation and California were mired in recession in 1992, which helped Bill Clinton defeat President George H.W. Bush. In the state primaries, GOP moderates, including Wilson, and conservatives -- led by gun groups and religious fundamentalists -- waged internecine warfare, leaving the party’s general-election candidates battered and lacking money.

Instead of losing their majority in the Assembly, Democrats increased it in the general election. They slipped a little in the state Senate but made surprising gains in the new 52-member congressional delegation, winning 29 seats.

Two years later, the political tide shifted nationally when Republicans exploited a congressional scandal and Clinton’s bumbled healthcare reform to gain control of Congress. In California, Wilson trounced his Democratic challenger and the GOP briefly took control of the Assembly.

The current incumbent-protection plan was the fruit of GOP nervousness over a Democratic gerrymander that could erase as many as six Republican seats in the state’s congressional delegation, which would have threatened the party’s control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

A bipartisan deal to maintain the status quo was cut, and last year, not one of the 153 legislative and congressional seats up for election changed parties.

Nonetheless, should Schwarzenegger pursue his redistricting plan and succeed, not only can Republican control of the House be threatened but increased GOP numbers in Sacramento -- no matter at whose political expense -- will not guarantee the moderate lawmakers the governor desires. There’s no denying the current “do-it-yourself” Legislature is one of the most highly polarized in modern history. But reapportionment by vested politicians isn’t totally to blame.

Schwarzenegger knows that redesigning reapportionment won’t end Sacramento gridlock. He supported a proposition on last November’s ballot that would have revived California’s open primary system. Studies indicate that allowing all voters to select any party’s nominees tended to produce more moderate candidates.

The current closed primaries, in which the parties’ activist wings usually prevail, typically produce liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans as the nominees. That dynamic is what’s driving the brutal partisanship that grips Sacramento -- and its effects will persist no matter who handles reapportionment.

Schwarzenegger’s roll of the reapportionment dice could be expensive for California taxpayers if a special election is needed to decide the issue, and for special interests that will be hit up by candidates in tough races who need big bucks to survive politically.

But Californians are a lot less interested in spending time and money on the insider game of reapportionment than in overcoming threats to their quality of life: a dysfunctional education system, skyrocketing healthcare costs, crumbling infrastructure and mounting public debt.

No reapportionment scheme can guarantee leaders willing to take on issues that could imperil their political careers.