California Insider's got the poll numbers at the crack of dawn.
The news is mixed for Schwarzenegger. Teacher tenure is ahead by a wide margin. His budget reform and the redistricting initiative are losing badly.
The Insider also notes that support for redistricting reform goes up when voters understand the measure. Blogs can do that. Ted Costa, who has spearheaded the redistricting reform ballot measure, will be at the Bear Flag Summer Conference talking to bloggers directly.
Posted by Justene Adamec at June 22, 2005 07:30 AM | TrackBackWhy would judges be any more fair at drawing-up voting districts that the legislators that are doing it now?
For one thing, legislators are personally invested in how their districts are drawn, while judges have no such obvious stake.
I do think though, that it could be done more fairly even by legislators, if there were a review process requiring that contiguity and (my personal favorite) party-blindness be observed, and maps that violate these requirements will not take effect even if the review-and-revise process goes on for years.
Naturally, before too long the federal courts would get involved, redraw the districts themselves, and say, "Here, use these and quityerbitchin."
Posted by: McGehee at June 23, 2005 08:58 AM (Permalink)Redistricting in Texas was done at the point of a gun with the help of the Department of Homeland Security in order to jerrymander a neoconservative fanatical right wing coalition of unrepresentative Republicans. What makes you think that the end result in California would be any better?
If you know what is good for the Republican Party, you might wait for the extremism to die down. With the war effort crumbling and the reek of corruption in Washington starting to offend even Asia, the current wave of fanatics is going to crest and recede. No reason to let that wave completely wreck the political system of our state too.
Posted by: Cheryl at June 27, 2005 02:49 AM (Permalink)