Bush’s Bumbling Won’t Benefit State’s Democrats

California Democrats -- especially U.S. House candidates -- should be poised to clean up in November because of President Bush’s bungling, but they’re not. And it’s their own fault.

They’ve gerrymandered themselves out of the action.

It’s ironic that the political party most opposed to redistricting reform in California is the party that currently could be reaping its benefit.

Conversely, the party that historically has advocated taking redistricting away from the Legislature -- the minority GOP -- can thank its lucky stars that gerrymandering still prevails.

The California Democrats’ lost opportunity became clear last week in Connecticut. There, Democratic voters angry about Bush’s botched war sent him a loud message. They denied one of his key war supporters, Democrat Joe Lieberman, renomination to the Senate.

So Republican congressional candidates all over America are running from Bush, fearful they’ll be linked with him in voters’ minds.

“Unless something dramatic happens before election day, Democrats will take control of the House,” political analyst Charlie Cook wrote in the National Journal.

“The electoral hurricane bearing down on the GOP looks likely to be a category 4 or 5.... The political climate feels much as it did before previous elections that produced sizable upheavals, such as 1994.”

In 1994, Democrats lost control of both the House and the U.S. Senate, largely because of voter disenchantment with President Clinton.

The GOP tidal wave spread to California, where Republicans gained eight Assembly seats and seized control for two years. But that was after a court-ordered redistricting -- an honest one.

If the Legislature’s 2001 redistricting had been honest, California Democrats now would be in position to catch their own national wave and capitalize on another president’s unpopularity.

Unlike Clinton, Bush never has fared well in this blue state. And his handling of the Iraq war recently hit a new low in the Field Poll. The mid-July survey found that 67% of California voters disapproved of Bush’s war moves and 58% thought he should begin withdrawing troops.

But there’ll be no electoral hurricane in California. The GOP is protected. Not one of California’s 20 Republican-held House seats has a truly competitive race. Neither do any of the 33 Democratic seats.

If either party gains or loses seats in the Legislature, it’ll be very few. Democrats currently control the state Senate 25 to 15 and the Assembly 48 to 32. In 2004, not one legislative or congressional seat changed parties in 153 so-called contests.

All these elections were virtually decided back in 2001 during the Democratic Legislature’s once-a-decade redrawing of congressional and legislative districts. The congressional part was essentially drawn by House members.

That year, there was a conspiracy by Democrats and Republicans to protect all their own seats. They gerrymandered to safeguard the status quo.

Bush political strategists pushed for this, fearing that if the GOP lost any California seats, it would lose control of the House. Without the gerrymandering, they calculated, the GOP could lose up to six seats here.

So why did Democrats go along? For one, a bipartisan redistricting would eliminate the threat of a GOP court suit or referendum at the ballot. Second, they’d be assured of Democratic legislative control for the rest of the decade.

And veteran Democratic Rep. Howard L. Berman of Valley Village -- the House redistricting honcho -- had his own agenda: to avoid someday being beaten by a Latino challenger in a primary. Latino voter ranks had been growing in his district. The redrawing “significantly reduced the Latino voter registration from 35% of the electorate to 29%,” according to the California Target Book, which charts legislative and congressional races.

The White House’s man in Sacramento was Senate GOP Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga. “As a partisan warrior, I plead guilty,” he says. “Our redistricting was designed to protect the Republican majority in Congress, and it has. I did my job, and I’m proud I did.”

“Brulte picked the Democrats’ pockets,” says Tony Quinn, co-editor of the Target Book and a GOP redistricting staffer during the 1970s and ‘80s. “Bush is as unpopular here as he is in Connecticut, but the Democrats will gain nothing for it.”

If not for the gerrymandering, Quinn figures, Democrats could gain at least three House seats in California. They need 15 nationally to seize control.

Brulte -- no longer a legislator -- has joined the reform movement, advocating creation of an independent commission to handle redistricting. It’s a conflict of interest for legislators to draw their districts, he concedes.

An independent redistricting, it’s theorized, would result in more competitive general elections. Outcomes would become more reflective of public mood swings. Now, elections are decided mostly by the map drawers, who create districts that are either predominantly Democrat or rampant Republican. Geography be damned.

Voters last year soundly rejected the then-unpopular governor’s initiative to strip the Legislature of its redistricting power. Democratic legislative leaders promised to offer a better proposal this year. They’re still flailing around trying to do it.

Many Democratic lawmakers are refusing to surrender the power to gerrymander and choose their own voters. But they might if term limits can be relaxed. Republicans also covet more practical term limits.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has offered to support a package of redistricting and term-limit reforms. The Capitol thinking is that if voters are presented a bipartisan package backed by both parties, they might buy it.

That’s where we are today: A two-house conference committee is making a last-ditch effort to place a proposal on the November ballot -- or draft a measure for 2008. There’s a big argument over timing.

Either way, it’ll be too late for Democrats to cash in on the Republicans’ Bush burden. They blew it.

George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.