Shane Goldmacher of the Sac Bee‘s Capitol Alert notes the Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) Termed Out: Reforming California’s Legislative Term Limits (pdf), well timed by Sasha Horwitz. Ed Mendel of the San Diego Tribune‘s Newsblog also has a post on it, as does the California Progress Report, which says: With well financed campaigns on… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Redistricting
Sac Bee On The Consequences of Avoiding Redistricting Reform
The Sacramento Bee opines: “By nixing redistricting reform, legislative leaders may have doomed Proposition 93.” It is becoming clear to everyone these days (if it wasn’t already) that the attempt to lift term limits without some kind of redistricting reform was a colossal blunder. For a while, it appeared that Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and… Continue Reading
Walters on Boyarsky on Unruh
Dan Walters reviews Bill Boyarsky‘s Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics in the Sacramento Bee. Here’s a snippet that begins by refering to Unruh’s promises to the people of the fruits of the full-time legislature he helped create: Initially, the promises appeared to be coming true as Sacramento generated an outpouring… Continue Reading
Boyarsky on Unruh
An excerpt in the L.A. Times from Bill Boyarsky‘s Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics touches on redistricting: Unruh reached into the streets of South Central Los Angeles and, for the first time, brought substantial numbers of African Americans into power in the California legislature and Democratic Party. “Jesse genuinely believed… Continue Reading
FEC Nominees and Redistricting Politics
Via Election Law. In this Weekly Standard article, Edward Blum of the American Enterprise Institute criticizes Barak Obama’s criticism of Bush FEC nominee Hans von Spakovsky. Redistricting is in the mix: Continue Reading
Common Cause on the Voter’s FIRST Act
Josh Zaharoff of Common Cause, in a round-up of the organization’s actions for election reform throughout the states, sums up their recent actions for redistricting reform in California: Continue Reading
Redistricting Controversy in Wisconsin
The Journal Times of Racine, Wisconsin, in an op-ed advocating for redistricting reform, says: In 2005 both California and Ohio voters faced ballot measures to replace legislative redistricting with less political panels. Both states defeated their respective measures. In California, Democratic districts were heavily against the idea as were public employee unions, yet supporters included… Continue Reading
Elections: Minority Mobilization
The California Progress Report points out an interesting new study sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation entitled New Experiments in Minority Mobilization. From the Executive Summary: Best Practices To date, the California Votes Initiative has uncovered or confirmed the following best practices for voter mobilization efforts in low-propensity voter communities. 1. Campaigns should ideally use… Continue Reading
Redistricting Game Interview
The Redistricting Game, created at the USC Annenberg Center, deserves all the accolades it has received over the past months. Over at the election reform outfit Why Tuesday, Jacob Soboroff, Executive Director and occasional contributor to L.A. Observed, points to a video interview with Lead Game Designer and Assistant Professor Chris Swain that “continues to… Continue Reading
Redistricting Reform Update
The following article is from our Fall, 2007 newsletter: Each year politicians promise to change the way California redistricts, and each year they fail to deliver. California and most other states let the legislature draw districts, essentially allowing politicians to decide who their voters are rather than letting the voters decide who they want to… Continue Reading