Gray Davis supports reforming process of redistricting

[davidinalameda]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/29/BAGGADVM2C1.DTL

Former Gov. Gray Davis said Thursday that he supports taking the power to draw legislative boundaries away from lawmakers, an idea Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been pushing.

"I believe it is a mistake to have the Legislature and the governor draw the district lines," Davis said in a call to Sacramento radio station KTKX. "It's basically a conflict of interest."

Davis did not specifically endorse the measure Schwarzenegger is trying to put on the November ballot. That measure would have retired judges draw the lines starting in 2006. The former governor said he thought the change should occur at the next regularly scheduled census in 2010.



and I want to know again why it's a bad thing he's out of office other than the obvious

[wli]

1. this is why election methods need to pass the consistency criterion

Gerrymandering.

[Journeyman]

2. I'd like to see substantial redistricting of the State. . .

but like Davis, I believe it should occur according to law: after the next census. How the redistricting should be done, and who should do it, are all subject to debate, but that it should be done no one who takes a dispassionate view of the present lines can dispute.

My district starts in one county as a sizeable block, snakes up the coast along a path less than a mile wide, then blossoms out again about 20 miles away from me. It looks somewhat like a bent barbell. I have very little in common with the people who live in the thin strip along the coast, and next to nothing in common with those who live in the other end of the barbell. I should be ganged together with people immediately around my home. But that would create a decidedly Democratic district, not the mainly Republican district I live in because of the weird gerrymandering of the lines.

There are many compelling reasons for redrawing the district lines -- to create more homogeneous divisions, to compel greater competition, to force politicians to address the immediate needs of the neighborhood rather than losing themselves in emotional appeals that serve only their base -- but the process has to be done rationally, with input from everyone, and with an eye to -- for lack of better words -- fairness and natural boundaries, rather than manufactured political advantage. And so, for the same reasons I support redistricting, I oppose Schwarzenegger's initiative, since his plan seeks a partisan advantage in a limited timeframe.

As to your final question, I opposed the Davis recall because I didn't want to see him removed for political purposes. He was, in my estimation, incredibly inept in his handling of the Energy Pirates' Rape of the State, but he didn't commit a crime in that, nor was he guilty of malfeasance or any other impeachable-worthy offense, so I saw no valid reason to remove him through recall. In the course of time, we'd have an opportunity to rid ourselves of him next year, and that was sufficient for me.

[ProudDad]

3. If we had to have an actor instead of Davis

Why couldn't it have been Garry Coleman. Much better choice than the gropenfuhrer...