With most of my attention geared toward national election issues, I have not paid much attention to California’s Proposition 11, which would establish a citizen commission to redistrict the state legislature (congressional districting would remain in the hands of the legislature). I come to this without a strong opinion. On the one hand, I like the idea that the people through the initiative process can establish a system without the legislature for a process which currently is so laden with self-interest. On the other hand, I am wary of the Rube-Goldberg-esqe quality of the selection of the redistricting commission, and worry about unintended consequences.
There’s much more money on the “yes” side than the “no” side of this, and current polling suggests that the measure is polling at only 41% yes, which is not a great sign for the measure’s success this close to the election.
In any event, I’m speaking to a group of students tomorrow (with two other panelists) about Prop. 11, and I had not had the chance to read the actual text of the measure. So I was struck when I read this in the text of the new law about qualifications to be on the citizen redistricting commission: “Each commission member shall have voted in two of the last three statewide general elections immediately preceding his or her application.”
By its plain text, this sentence seems to disqualify from the commission voters who voted in all three of the last statewide general elections. An apparent drafting error, or at least an ambiguity, that could have been avoided by adding the words “at least” before “two.”
Not a reason to vote against it I suppose. But it doesn’t give me confidence in the complex scheme that’s been put in place. (A more substantive question I have is about the state auditor, who seems to have so much power here. What are his or her interests likely to be?)