Independent Redistricting: Look to California

REDISTRICTING

• Battles to Shape Maps, and Congress, Go to Courts (By MICHAEL COOPER and JENNIFER MEDINA, NY Times) The state many people are watching this year is California, where, thanks to a voter-approved initiative, the district lines were drawn by an independent commission. While lines were often drawn to protect incumbents in both parties — leading to odd districts that some people joked were contiguous only at low tide — the new lines are expected to be much more competitive, although Democrats are seen as likely to gain a couple of seats.
  Redistricting Roundup: Another week, another special session leads to a completed map (Edited by Tyler, Millhouse, BALLOT NEWS)

Independent Redistricting in a Partisan World Uphill Battle

REDISTRICTING

• Redistricting now in Salt Lake County Council’s hands (By Jeremiah Stettler, The Salt Lake Tribune) Mayor Peter Corroon, a Democrat, considers the redistricting plans well-crafted. “The nonpartisan commission presented three viable options,” Corroon said, “a true demonstration of working for people not politics.”
• Editorial: Independent redistricting panel up to citizens (Athens GA Banner-Herald) Clearly, then, what it will take to make an independent redistricting commission a reality in Georgia is a broad-based grassroots movement. Even those citizens who favor the party currently in power have an interest -- albeit it might not readily be apparent to them -- in having district lines drawn based on a "communities of interest" standard.
• California's redistricting, by 14 citizens (By Cynthia Dai, LA Times) Predictably, some people aren't happy with our final decisions. Politicians and political parties that no longer have the same safe districts wish we'd drawn different lines. But there are procedures for dissenters to voice their concerns at the ballot box or in the courts.
• Maine Redistricting Dispute Could be Headed for Court (Reported By: A.J. Higgins, Maine Public Broadcasting Network) Republicans and Democrats on a 15-member Reapportionment Commission continued to disagree today on a plan to redraw the political boundaries of the state's 1st and 2nd Congressional districts. Commission Chairman Michael Friedman, the sole politically unaffiliated member from Bangor, ended the stalemate by siding with the Democrats. Now both proposals go to the Legislature--and possibly the Supreme Court for a final ruling.
• Redistricting committee still stuck in partisan rut, so Legislature to decide issue (By Eric Russell, Bangor Daily News) Michael Friedman: “I couldn’t get the donkey and the elephant to move a stitch, even though I tried. But I remain an optimist because whatever happens today, it’s not the end of the road.”
• Editorial: IRC ignoring rural districts (The Daily Courier - Prescot AZ) In this space we have supported efforts to de-politicize the process in hopes of creating more competitive and more representative districts. It should not be so difficult to create districts in which the representative - state or federal - would have to think about balance, both politically and remembering rural concerns. Proof of this disconnect is found in the state Independent Redistricting Commission's public outreach meetings. No members of the IRC attended the commission's meeting in Flagstaff. Not one.
• Pinal congressional, legislative districts need to shrink - Hispanic group favors similar 4th, 7th lines (By HAROLD KITCHING, TriValleyCentral) The Independent Redistricting Commission, mandated by a voter initiative in 2000 to take the redrawing away from politicians, has adopted basic congressional and legislative maps as a starting point, based on equal population and compactness and continuousness.

California Independent Redistricting; Mississippi Open Primaries

CALIFORNIA REDISTRICTING
California's voting lines of contention - Critics on the right and the left are finding fault with California's proposed new voting districts. (EDITORIAL LA Times)

OPEN PRIMARIES
Elections should be open to all (LETTER Clarion Ledger) If enough people get upset enough, we might be able to do some of these things in this state with initiative and referendum.

California: Non-Partisan Redistricting, Libertarians and Top Two

CALIFORNIA

• Steven Greenhut: Left wins redistricting game in California (By STEVEN GREENHUT / Special to the Orange County Register) California’s new electoral districts crafted by a supposedly nonpartisan commission, which actually did the bidding of left-wing and ethnic interest groups, will almost certainly ensure a two-thirds legislative majority for tax-hiking Democrats.
• Libertarians bemoan new primary system, back pot (By Kyle Magin, The Union - SW Nevada County CA) The party's national Chairman Mark Hinkle was in Grass Valley on Friday rallying party members and prospective party members to both causes. Speaking before about 20 people at Mi Comida Mexican Restaurant, Hinkle railed against Proposition 14, a 2010 California ballot initiative that established an “open primary.” That means that during primary season, all candidates, regardless of party, will run against each other in the primary election. The top two, regardless of party, will move on to the general election. That spells trouble for third parties, Hinkle said. “The problem with that is third parties are not usually the top two vote-getters,” Hinkle said. “What happens to Libertarian ideas and Libertarian candidates after the primary? We're done.”
• Good Riddance to the Early Primary (By John Wildermuth, Fox & Hounds Daily) That's not what the state needs, especially this year. The primary will be the first election run in the new districts redrawn using the 2010 census data. It also will feature some important - and entertaining -- Democrat vs. Democrat and Republican vs. Republican scrums, made all the more interesting by California's new open primary rules. With all those changes, the state needs more primary voters, not fewer, if the ultimate results are going to be truly representative of the state.

Abel Maldonado May Benefit from Top Two + Independent Redistricting

CALIFORNIA

• Few political jolts in Monterey County redistricting plan (By LARRY PARSONS, Monterey Herald) The biggest buzz about the new maps is to the south of the county. Republicans are hoping the new 24th congressional district will enable Abel Maldonado, a former Republican state senator from Santa Maria who used to represent Monterey County, to defeat eight-term Democratic Rep. Lois Capps of Santa Barbara.
• Maldonado, Capps in SYV congressional race (By Marga K. Cooley/Associate Editor, Santa Ynez Valley News)

California: Top Two Open Primary + Independent Redistricting = Blow to Partisan System

CALIFORNIASteve Lambert: Redistricting's one-two punch (By Steve Lambert, Whittier Daily News) Shifts in population have forced a redrawing of lines throughout the state, and for the first time since 1992, those choices aren't being made by politicians, rather by a citizens panel that may just well be the most powerful Californians this side of the prison guards union.

Arizona Independents Told to Pick a Party to Vote; California Politicians Conflict of Interest in Drawing Their Own Districts

OPEN PRIMARIES
No-party adherents are told to pick one (Rhonda Bodfield, Arizona Daily Star) There is no independent primary. But since 1998, independents have been able to vote in the various party primaries. They just have to pick which one they want to vote in. For an all-mail election, the notice telling them to pick a party is the equivalent of walking into a polling place and telling the poll worker which party's primary you want to vote in.

INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING
Letter: Supervisors shouldn't draw districts (Chico Enterprise-Record) When will politicians like Wahl get the message that it is a conflict of interest to be drawing their own lines?

2012

• Obama needs to court Latino vote (By: C. Nicole Mason, executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, in Winnipeg Free Press) In 2008, Obama relied heavily on the votes of blacks and independent voters to carry him to victory. However, in the mid-term elections, uneasy about the economy and high unemployment, both groups preferred the couch to the voting booth. This, however, was not the case for Latinos, who set a mid-term election record with a turnout of more than six million. 
• Obama’s drawdown plan ‘about right,’ poll finds (By Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen, Washington Post/Checkpoint) Obama has been courting independent voters for months, and 40 percent of respondents who identified themselves as independents said his withdrawal plan is “about right."

NEW JERSEY
From Confusion to Fusion: Union Survival in the Age of Christie (By John D. Atlas/NJ Voices, Star Ledger) If the union movement wants to break out its dilemma it better build some kind of independent political party capable of winning power or it will face a future between a rock and a hard place.

NEW YORK
Before Passing Marriage Bill, Senate Extended Rent Regulations and More (by David King, Gotham Gazette) According to a study by Common Cause/NY, New York City, real estate interests donated almost $10 million to local and statewide races in 2009-2010 -- a sum nearly double what was spent by the real estate industry from 2007-2008. Fifty-two percent ($5,114,665) of that cash went to Democrats, while 24 percent ($2,351,924) went to Republicans. The remaining 24 percent was spread throughout third parties and ther groups, with the largest amount -- more than 9 percent -- going to the Independence Party… One major issue that the Senate chose to ignore was independent redistricting. During the 2010 election season, former Mayor Ed Koch and his NY Uprising group won pledges from a majority of legislators on both sides of the aisle to support independent redistricting.


MEDIA
Poll: Fewer Californians follow political news (The Associated Press, Sac Bee) The 25 percent who say they follow news of government and politics "only now and then (or) hardly at all" is up from 20 percent in 1999 and 16 percent in 1979. Voters who consider themselves independents were the least likely to say they follow political news closely: Only 30 percent of nonpartisan voters said they paid close attention to political news, compared with 41 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans.