Skelton on Redistricting Politics and Poizner

George SkeltonGeorge Skelton’s Capitol Journal column on redistricting and Steve Poizner in today’s Los Angeles Times:

But the Democrats’ biggest fumble was reneging on their promise to produce a redistricting reform that surrendered the Legislature’s gerrymandering power. Democratic leaders made that pledge in 2005 when beating back a redistricting measure championed by Poizner.

The original idea this year was to pair redistricting and term-limit reforms on the Feb. 5 ballot. That bipartisan package would have been endorsed by Schwarzenegger. But Democrats failed to deliver, presumably balking at giving upredistricting without being assured of term-limits liberalization.

“There’s a legitimate debate to be had about modifying term limits that I’d be happy to enter into,” Poizner says.

“But not without redistricting reform.”

It would be ironic and fitting if the Democrats’ next gerrymander in 2011 was vetoed by a Republican governor they helped create, Steve Poizner.

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