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“People who have more money should be free to buy more cars, more homes, more vacations, and more gizmos than the rest of us. They should not be able to buy more democracy." -Bill Moyers |
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For Release: Friday, June 10, 2005
California's redistricting process is blatantly corrupt and in need of repair. TheRestofUs.org supports efforts to move redistricting decisions out of the hands of politicians and into independent commissions. Ideal commissions would have the following characteristics: " Redistricting commissions should balance the objectives of accurate representation of political constituencies, robust competition, and preservation of existing political boundaries like cities and counties. " Redistricting commissions should be empowered to consider multi-member districts that achieve proportional representation. For instance, a region might elect three Assembly members, making it likely in most regions that at least one Democrat and one Republican would be elected with vigorous competition for the third seat. Most voters would then have at least one elected representative of their own party yet still have competitive elections and meaningful choices on election day. " Commissions should be prohibited from considering incumbent addresses in drawing districts. " Commissions should ideally be comprised of ordinary citizens, empanelled like a grand jury, not politicians, former or future politicians, or lobbyists. We applaud People's Advocate and its director Ted Costa for playing a leading role in this issue. They are days away from official certification of their ballot measure and deserve thanks from the rest of us for all their hard work. While we do not agree with every provision in this initiative and it falls short of our ideal goals as outlined above, it is clearly a better deal for democracy than California's current redistricting process. We encourage both the governor and the legislature to continue negotiating toward a redistricting policy that everyone can agree upon, but the People's Advocate has at least now provided voters with one good option for reform. Unless the legislature refers a better redistricting initiative to the ballot, TheRestofUs.org will endorse the People's Advocate initiative and encourage all Californians to support it. We also applaud Governor Schwarzenegger for his support of the People's Advocate initiative. While we remain deeply disappointed in the way Governor Schwarzenegger is illegally raising and spending funds through his initiative committees to support this and other initiatives as well as his own political career, he deserves recognition for this one important act of reform. We will continue to watchdog his fundraising and encourage Arnold to stop running with his fat cat crowd and instead seek support for this important issue from regular citizens. #-#-# TheRestofUs.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to make democracy work for ordinary citizens. TheRestofUs.org is involved in campaign finance ballot measures in Oregon and Ohio and independent redistricting policy in California, Florida, and Ohio. We will soon file an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and uphold Vermont’s mandatory spending limits. We also support federal efforts to eliminate the 527 loophole for soft money electioneering.
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