"Vote yes on Proposition 77"

The San Jose Mercury News offers this editorial. For a contrary view, see this LA Times oped by Ethan Rarick. You have to like Rarick's intellectual honesty, whether or not you agree with his opinion:

In most districts in California nowadays, it really doesn't matter who you vote for in the general election; the registration figures are so lopsided in favor of one party or the other that the winner already has been effectively decided. So, yes, it makes sense in theory to put some distance between the people who write the electoral map and the people who run for office. Allowing working politicians to pick and choose the voters they represent, rather than the other way around, is a particularly blatant form of self-dealing.

Despite that, I'm going to vote against the proposition. In fact, I would vote against any nonpartisan redistricting plan that applies to congressional as well as legislative districts, as Proposition 77 does.

Here's why. I'm a Democrat, and while I don't think that the nonpartisan redistricting would have much of an effect on the legislative majorities in the California statehouse (where Democrats are likely to keep control of both the Assembly and the Senate), I do think a nonpartisan redistricting could reduce the number of Democrats in California's congressional delegation, lessening the chances that Democrats will ever be able to regain control of the House of Representatives....
I'm all for fairness, but I'm not so noble that I'm willing to lay down my Democratic sword here in California while Tom DeLay and his henchmen disembowel my soul-mates on the dusty plains of the Lone Star State, all the while swinging the federal government further and further to the right.

Posted by Rick Hasen at October 3, 2005 08:25 AM