Santa Cruz Sentinel Endorses Proposition 11

The Santa Cruz Sentinel recently wrote an editorial in support of Proposition 11. The Sentinel claims that future budget negotiations would gain from the increased number of competitive elections the initiative would provide.

In the end, Democrats wanted to raise taxes and Republicans wanted to cut spending, and neither party was willing to suffer the political pain that truly reforming the ongoing budget mess would entail.

And why should they, since re-election in the vast majority of political districts is virtually guaranteed? Legislators thus are not accountable for their performance in office and this leads to extreme partisanship that has led to inaction or stalemates on major problems.

Proposition 11 would amend the state Constitution by giving the task of redrawing legislative districts to a citizen panel and taking it away from the very legislators who have used the process to ensure their own re-elections. The performance of legislators is the main reason why voters in the primary rejected a move to reform term limits, which is currently the only way to get turnover in Sacramento.

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