California Kabuki

Working Hard at Getting Nothing Done: California Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee hearing on April 25, 2006, showing (left to right at witness table) Dr. John R. Koza, originator of the plan, Assembly member Tom Umberg (D), the bill’s sponsor and chair of the Committee, and Ethan Jones, Consultant to the Committee.

On August 16th, the California Senate became the first state legislative body in America to vote to turn over redistricting powers to an independent agency. Although it was hailed by hopeful reform advocates, it was an illusion. It was all part of a kabuki play launched last year when the Democratic leaders of California’s legislature promised to do redistricting reform “the right way” … if only voters went along with them in defeating Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s redistricting reform initiative, which they did.

Redistricting reform had died earlier in the week when a special legislative conference committee failed to reach agreement on a ballot measure linking redistricting reform with an adjustment in term limits. Then the “historic” vote occurred in California’s Senate, raising hopes among the still credulous. Only to have reform die again in a Rashomon-like welter of conflicting stories when the Assembly was unable (some stories have it unwilling), to receive the redistricting-only bill in time to take it up before adjourning for the week and pass it to make the November ballot.

Redistricting reform was on the California ballot last year as part of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ill-fated “Year of Reform” package. As they scrambled to shoot it down, Democratic legislative leaders pledged that they would “do it right” this year. But politicians seldom if ever give up power. Powerful interests in the Democratic Party like the system just the way it is now, and there have been signals for months that it would not happen.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, for example, made it known that he preferred that this November’s ballot focus as much as possible on the infrastructure bonds initiative package he has championed for several years.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez pushed for months to link redistricting reform with a change in the term limits law. While there is some merit to his argument — California’s legislators generally remain unseasoned and scramble to another office when their time is up — there is no way such a measure could actually pass now. Voters like term limits and the insiders who have moaned about them for years have never embarked on a public education campaign.

Then there are the public employee unions, the “anchor tenants” of the Democratic Party, to use legendary power broker Willie Brown’s term. They don’t want to change the redistricting system in which the politicians in power draw their own district lines.

After the comedy of errors around the physical delivery of the bill from the Senate to the Assembly — just the latest act in a kabuki play — Nunez held a contentious media conference call with clearly agitated journalists.

Now, pay attention to the pea under the shifting shells.

Nunez insisted that the Senate, after passing a redistricting reform bill, at first sent over a companion bill but kept the main bill in-house. Only early yesterday afternoon, say he and his top aides, did the Senate finally attempt to deliver the main bill to the Assembly. Alas, the Assembly had already adjourned and was unable to take up the bill in time to place it on the November ballot. Nunez flatly denied stories circulating from Perata aides that the Senate did try to deliver the main bill only to be refused.

At the end of the conference call, noting that we are where we are, I suggested to the speaker that he, Governor Schwarzenegger, and Senator Perata set a deadline next year to place a reform measure on the 2008 ballot. Thus there would be no opportunity to fail by waiting until the last minute. Nunez agreed to this approach. We’ll see what others say.

Perata, I’m told, will be agreeable. It probably goes without saying that Schwarzenegger will be, since he put his reputation on the line last year trying to pass a redistricting reform initiative only to be told that the Legislature would “do it right” this year.

Of course, what the politicians really want is to change term limits at the same time as reforming redistricting. Both will require a focused, sophisticated public education campaign. Redistricting, while key to the functioning of the political system, is an esoteric issue to most voters. And term limits are popular.

It would require leadership that can break through the clutter to get these things passed. That almost certainly means Schwarzenegger. Ironically, he may well have gotten redistricting reform passed last year, despite some flaws in the initiative, had he focused on it rather than take on all four initiatives that he ended up proposing. And losing.

Meanwhile, after this extraordinarily laughable episode, with the press clearly not buying the explanations of Democratic legislative leaders, it’s obvious that only public pressure and the intervention of the governor will get the entrenched political class to honor its promises. What else is new?

An exclusive article from Pajamas Media, the Best of the Blogs, and POLITICSCENTRAL.