Once again Californians are being asked at this election, in Proposition 11, whether we want to establish an “independent” commission to redraw legislative district boundaries after each national census. Notwithstanding that this measure is closer than the other 11 propositions on the statewide ballot to my own field of research, I remained undecided on it until today (whereas a decision on most of the others was immediately obvious).
I have decided to vote no, but it is not a decision I make with good feeling, as there are many positive things about the measure. And much wrong with the status quo.
As an advocate of reform away from plurality, I have a difficult time getting excited about tinkering within the framework of a plurality system. That we are debating, in 2008, whether to take drawing of district boundaries out of the hands of self-interested elected legislators, shows how far we have not come in democratic electoral politics.
from Maine westward to the Pacific Ocean, in the last ten years, in no state whatever had there been an honest and fair district apportionment bill passed for the election of members of Congress [except] where two branches of a legislature were divided in political opinion, and one checked the other.
That quotation is from Henry Droop, a passionate advocate of reforms away from plurality, and specifically of the single transferable vote. He wrote those words in 1869. Here we are in 2008, and the words still ring true, other than their needing to be amended by a recognition that in modern times divided partisan control has often resulted in an arguably even worse outcome: the bipartisan incumbent-protection racket, rather than an “honest and fair” bill.
Reforms to put map-drawing in the hands of “independent” agencies were adopted long ago in most plurality jurisdictions. But here we are, still debating it. And here I am, unable to vote for the measure.
There are actually several items in the measure’s favor. First is the obvious fact that legislators’ drawing legislative district lines is a conflict of interest, which we the people should take away. It is a clear “good government” reform. Also arguing in favor is a pragmatic reformer’s long-run view: Progress towards proportional representation (of whatever form) is unlikely so long as there is a claim to be made, such as is made by the proponents of Prop 11, that redistricting reform will result in a more responsive legislature with fewer ‘safe’ members. I suspect that the movement in that direction, while likely positive, is unlikely to be substantial. Maybe the PR movement needs a period of time for discontent about the impact of ‘fair districting’ to sink in before the public will be open to real reform.
Yet another argument in favor of this specific measure is that, unlike past proposals, this one does not include the state’s House of Representatives districts within the purview of the proposed redistricting commission. Of course, I would favor the drawing of House districts on independent criteria, rather than by state legislators–if we must keep plurality election of the House. However, I am not an advocate of unilateral partisan disarmament. A move to independent redistricting in one large and Democratic-dominated state without simultaneous moves by some significant Republican-dominated states risks the future partisan balance of the House. Thus redistricting reform in the House presumably should be done via constitutional amendment or an interstate compact (on the model of the National Popular Vote for the presidency).
The specific measure has some major problems, however. It has an extremely complex procedure designed to keep it free of partisan influence, yet at the same time it allows the leaders of the two major parties in Sacramento to strike names from the short list of candidates for commissioner.1
The commission would be comprised of 14 members, five from each of the two largest parties (based on voter registration) and four who are not registered with either of the two largest parties. Right there, that alone is almost a deal-breaker for me: it entrenches a role in election district-drawing for two parties, not even allowing for the possibility that a third party might one day win a seat or two. If such a party did win a seat or two, this commission would find it easier than a genuinely independent agency to gerrymander the third-party districts out of existence.
The Commission would be granted funds and software with which to draw maps, based on specific (and good–but, as discussed in the comments, potentially contradictory) criteria laid out in the measure.2 A decision on maps for each house of the legislature3 would have to be taken by nine votes on the Commission, including at least three votes by Commissioners representing each of the major parties and three Commissioners not representing the two major parties.
The appointment process is convoluted, but starts with self-selection in that voters submit applications. The State Auditor4 establishes an Applicant Review Panel (ARP), drawn randomly from auditors until there is one name from each major party and one who is registered with another party or nonpartisan. The ARP then screens the applicants, disqualifying those with stipulated conflicts of interest (including having been a candidate to partisan office or a family member of a candidate, and various other disqualifications).
Names are then drawn from the remaining pool to form a short list of 20 from each major party and 20 more who are not registered with a major party. These three groups of 20 are identified in the measure as the “subpools.” This is where the ‘strikes’ come in. The majority and minority party leaders in each house of the state legislature are now each allowed to remove two applicants from each subpool–for a total of 8 possible strikes from the original 60. Then the remaining names go forward to the State Auditor, who draws up the preliminary members of the Commission. The Auditor, however, selects only eight members (3 from each major party and 2 who are not). The remaining six (2 from each major party and 2 not from either major party) are co-opted onto the Commission by the originally selected eight (from the subpools). That feature limits the randomness inherent in the initial creation of the subpools, because if the initial six are comprised in part of members with partisan interest, they then have the ability to stack the rest of the Commission in their favor.
I actually am simplifying what is in the actual text of the measure! I wonder if a less complex process could have been devised? Perhaps even one with less input by top leaders of the partisan duopoly?
One troubling feature of the measure is the absence of any realistic role for the 19.5% of voters registered “Decline to State” [any party affiliation] or the 4.3% registered with parties other than Republican and Democrat.5 While voters from this pool of the electorate can submit their names, there is nothing to stop the leaders of the major parties from exercising their ‘strike’ option against anyone who enters the pool and is seen as an advocate for interests beyond those of the two main parties. And there is no representative of voters other than Democrats and Republicans delegated the ‘strike’ authority. In fact, one could doubt whether the legislative leaders are meaningful representatives for this purpose even of the voters who register with their parties.
In essence, the drafters of this initiative are trying to make the process appear to be driven by citizens,6 but were not willing to go as far as something resembling an actual Citizens Assembly.7 It looks to me as if this Commission is so structured as to recreate bipartisan dominance through what only looks like an independent commission. Yet it would be entrenched in the state constitution.
The disenfranchisement of actual independent voters reminds me of another of my favorite passages from Droop’s 1869 essay on electoral reform (part of which is enshrined in the blog’s banner):
a large proportion of the electors who vote for the candidates of the one party or the other really care much more about the country being honestly and wisely governed than about the particular points at issue between the two parties; and if this moderate non-partisan section of the electors had their separate representatives in the assembly, they would be able to mediate between the opposing parties and prevent the one party from pushing their advantage too far, and the other from prolonging a factious opposition.
Indeed, this measure shows–and entrenches–the difficulties those moderate and nonpartisan voters have of gaining representation in a fundamental part of the democratic process: districting. As I indicated above, of course, I doubt that such voters who care, above all, “about the country [or state] being honestly and wisely governed” can ever be fully enfranchised through single-seat districts. And, as I have often argued here, significant electoral reform is unlikely as long as no third parties make breakthroughs into our representative bodies. Californians have before them on Nov. 4 a measure that would make such a breakthrough no more, and perhaps less, likely than it is now, by entrenching a bipartisan dominance over the redistricting process. For these reasons, I will be voting NO on Proposition 11.
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- The text of Prop. 11 may be downloaded from the California Secretary of State‘s Office. [↩]
- The new criteria would also bind the legislature in the drawing of House of Representatives districts. [↩]
- And the State Board of Equalization. [↩]
- The State Auditor is selected by the Governor from a pool of three names sent forward by a bicameral Joint Legislative Audit Committee of the state legislature. [↩]
- Registration figures available from the Secretary of State. [↩]
- It is more citizen-driven than the last proposal, for sure. In that one, the line-drawing panel was to be made up of retired judges. [↩]
- Such as the ones that recently proposed entirely new electoral systems in British Columbia and Ontario, or recommended adjustments to the system in the Netherlands. [↩]
Thank you. I would only add to this excellent analysis of the partisan implications of Prop. 11 that the California constitution is currently silent on the number of political parties, and this amendment would enshrine the two-party duopoly there for (as far as I know) the first time.
It’s also worth pointing out that the redistricting criteria mandated by measure itself emphasize communities of interest and make no mention of competitiveness. Advocates for the measure, on the other hand, speak as if the measure could accomplish both — as if they weren’t mutually incompatible, a zero-sum game, within the framework of single member districts.
Seed planted by Bob Richard — 30 October 2008 @ 20:10
Thanks for this excellent analysis of Prop 11. I have been bouncing back and forth between voting yes or no on this proposition. When I saw the unrealistic claims of the proponents, I decided they set expectations so far beyond what could be accomplished that an eventual goal of multi member districts with PR would be best severed by voting yes. So that’s what I have done. Now I’m not so sure.
One point missed is that the “independent” commission is almost sure to deadlock and send the decision to the court. It only takes two non aligned commissioners or three of either of the major parties to veto the proposed maps. This is much worse that requiring a super majority. Only two commissioners can can the deals.
Chuck O’Neil
Seed planted by Chuck O'Neil — 31 October 2008 @ 03:47
Bob and Chuck, thank you. Both of you raise excellent additional points, including some that I had intended to address in the post (which was getting long enough already!).
Chuck’s point about the reversion in case of a committee deadlock (which is likely under the set-up) is one I definitely should have mentioned. Yes, then it goes to “special masters” appointed by the court. (Which is also what happens if the referendum mandated by the measure–another factor I neglected to mention) is defeated. (Who needs a referendum on a districting plan, anyway?)
The emphasis in the criteria on “communities of interest” sounds good, and I am inclined to believe that is a worthy goal by itself. In fact, there is little justification to single-seat districts if they are not strictly to represent geographically contained “communities.” But you are absolutely correct, Bob, that such a criterion is incompatible in many (most?) cases with competitiveness.
In fact, one of the main reasons why I don’t expect any reform of redistricting to achieve the goal of greater competitiveness is precisely that the two party constituences have become more geographically segregated over time. (On a different scale, that’s the same reason we have fewer swing states now than in past presidential elections and the whole red/blue state thing.)
Chuck’s reason for voting yes would also be my reason for voting yes (potentially), as I did say above. And it may even be a good enough reason. I just have come down on the other side, after much deliberation.
Thanks again. I hope others will weigh in before the election.
Seed planted by MSS — 31 October 2008 @ 12:53
So you think the status quo with zero independents, DTS’ers, or third party members is preferable? Simply amazing!
A classic case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. A sad case I might add. But I’m really missing the part where you all seem to think that your goals will be achieved through the status quo. At least Proposition 11 gives you a fighting chance.
Seed planted by Ash Roughani — 31 October 2008 @ 16:12
Until someone shows up here who plans to vote yes, I will play devil’s advocate for a while. One argument I have heard for Prop. 11 develops this sentence in MSS’s original post: Maybe the PR movement needs a period of time for discontent about the impact of ‘fair districting’ to sink in before the public will be open to real reform.
The idea is that good government advocates like Common Cause and the League of Women Voters still believe that neutrally-drawn single member districts can do some of the work of PR, without have to adopt PR itself. Specifically, they believe (or say they believe) that it can lead to more competitive elections. The only way these folks will learn otherwise is by having neutrally-drawn SMD’s for a while and learning from experience that this doesn’t work.
Further, these good government advocates are an essential part of any coalition for PR. They are the main institutional representatives of the sort of independent voters Henry Droop was so concerned about and who have so much to gain from PR (as much as small party supporters like myself). Even now, these organizations frequently endorse PR-related measures like AB 1294 in the California legislature last year and Measure L in the city of Davis two years ago.
Since we can’t get much further toward PR without these groups becoming more actively involved, we have to let them win redistricting reform and let that experiment run its course first.
An important problem with this argument is that, at least to some extent, the results are already in from experiments in states like Arizona, Iowa and Washington. These results suggest that the effect of redistricting reform on the number of competitive districts is somewhere between none and negative. Why would more experience here in California be decisive for these good government advocates?
Seed planted by Bob Richard — 31 October 2008 @ 18:35
My claim, Ash, is that the proposition, by entrenching a specific procedures dominated by the two major parties in the constitution, is actually worse than the status quo. Thus the claim is not that the goal (PR) can be achieved through the status quo, but that the status quo may actually be less an obstacle than the proposed measure.
I think reasonable people can disagree on that, and as I indicated, I do not come to this position lightly or without considerable regret.
This isn’t the first redistricting reform proposal, and it won’t be the last.
Seed planted by MSS — 31 October 2008 @ 19:28
Bob, you perfectly articulate why I thought I would vote yes. Till I actually read the (literal) fine print.
On those commissions in other states, do you happen to know how they are structured? How similar are they to Prop 11′s Rube Goldberg design?
Seed planted by MSS — 31 October 2008 @ 19:31
For more (probably) than you ever wanted to know about commissions in other states, see the National Conference of State Legislatures. Note that this page is an introduction and you have to click on all three of the “click here” links to see the detail.
Seed planted by Bob Richard — 01 November 2008 @ 17:16
This analysis has a fundamental flaw at its heart: the author writes “One troubling feature of the measure is the absence of any realistic role for the 19.5% of voters registered “Decline to State†[any party affiliation] or the 4.3% registered with parties other than Republican and Democrat.”
In fact, Prop 11 guarantees that this 23.8% of the population gets 26.7% of the seats on the Commission.
Unlike the statis quo, under Prop 11 the Republicans and Democrats cannot pass a plan that blocks out the independents: the plan cannot pass without the support of at least 3 of the 4 independents on the Commission. Now that’s a real role!
Without Prop 11, ONLY the incumbents of the two parties have any say, as the legislature and governor continue to control the process. With Prop 11, the independents get a major role.
Anyone serious about a role for independents in California politics would have to be Yes on Prop 11.
And the comment about who needs to referend a districting plan shows a lack of awareness of history: in 1981, California voters DID referend the plans adopted by the legislature and signed by then-Governor Jerry Brown. Unfortunately, reform advocates did not put any reform measure on the ballot with the referendum, so the same legislators and same Governor remained in control for the redrawing.
Seed planted by Douglas Johnson — 01 November 2008 @ 18:24
Regarding the referendum, I was asking a rhetorical question, not a historical one.
Seed planted by MSS — 02 November 2008 @ 16:52
Douglas Johnson: the plan cannot pass without the support of at least 3 of the 4 independents on the Commission.
But consider the process for picking these so-called “independents”, which MSS covers in his post. It doesn’t give the two largest parties complete veto power over the “independents”, but I think it does give them enough veto power to do the trick.
And why should a state (or national, for that matter) constitution ever single out the two largest political parties for any purpose? Why not say that each party receiving (for example) at least 10% in the last gubernatorial election gets four seats?
Seed planted by Bob Richard — 03 November 2008 @ 16:00
Thanks for your thoughtful post on prop 11. I share some of the concerns that you express but I ended up being in favor of it.
I discuss this here:
http://allaboutvoting.com/2008/10/12/i-support-ca-prop-11-redistricting-reform/
Seed planted by AllAboutVoting — 05 November 2008 @ 15:11
California’s uncompetitive districts
With the outcome of Prop. 11, which would create an “independent” commission to redraw district lines for the Assembly and state Senate, still uncertain (but mostly likely approved), can anyone convincingly argue that it is possible for an “independent” commission to improve this situation significantly?
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes — 16 November 2008 @ 19:53
In the end, Prop. 11 did pass, but it was the closest of the 12 measures on the ballot.
Yes: 5,957,057 (50.9%)
No: 5,759,932 (49.1%)
Seed planted by MSS — 19 December 2008 @ 20:07
I am interested in previous redistricting plans. Once again, I find myself recalling the past, thinking something passed the voter test and was never put into use due to something than a positive vote by the citizens. Didn’t CA pass a redistricting law that failed to come into use sometime in the past 20 years?
Seed planted by gail k lightfoot — 26 April 2010 @ 15:16
I live in New York, which uses the bipartisan incumbent protection gerrymandering that was mentioned earlier. The neighboring state, New Jersey, uses an independent commission where the two parties appoint most of the commissioners, similar to this proposal. The result for New Jersey is a bipartisan incumbent protection gerrymandering just as bad as the most straightforward New York process. While I’m open to arguments that even very weak reforms have some value, anything like the New Jersey system shouldn’t be enshrined in a Constitution, and in fact there is considerable evidence that the various legislation specifically benefitting the two major parties (guaranteed ballot spots, party control of the vote counting machinery, etc.) plays a much greater role in limiting competition in US elections than with gerrymandering.
It sometimes amazes me the bad government practices Americans are prepared to shrug and tolerate. Politicians should not draw their own legislative districts, period. They should not choose their own voters. This is as bad as letting them choose their own electoral opponents. Like in some other matters, the most appropriate reform would be to appoint an independent commission which would throw darts at a big map of the world, then adopt whichever relevant legislation of the first country using single member districts that the dart managed to hit. Is there any other country in the world that uses a district drawing system similar to that used in the US? Everyone else seems to manage setting up a genuinely independent commission to do the job, including apparently two US states, Iowa and Washington. The complexity of the proposal leads me to suspect that this is a smoke and mirrors proposal designed to actually prevent further reform, another depressingly common American political practice.
Two more points. I think opponents of gerrymandering have tended to exaggerate its advantages for incumbents, or one political party. Incumbents have many other advantages in the US system, and there is some evidence that gerrymandering can’t prevent significant losses in a “wave election”. I think the main problem is that it tends to break up communities, and I think its important that elected representatives represent identifiable communities (for this reason I prefer the British and Canadian practice of naming electoral districts over the French and American practice of numbering them). I’m a political junkie, and honestly can’t tell you who represents me in the NY State Assembly without looking it up, since my neighborhood is divided between a number of districts (I think the block I live on is bisected by a boundary), and the local media ignores the legislature unless there is a scandal. New York has a sort of clientelist political system where politicians rely on groups with which they have cultivated a relationship voting, and everyone else staying home, and electoral districts tend to be the politicians’ base area, plus odds and ends of other places tacked on to make the equal population standard.
Advocates for proportional representation should care how electoral districts are drawn. First neutral districts are, or should be seen as, a basic requirement for fair elections on a par with neutral and accurate vote counting. Second, most proportional systems use districts, just very large multimember ones, so even in a proportional system there is still a need to have a good method in place to draw boundaries.
Seed planted by Ed — 27 April 2010 @ 08:40
Much of what Ed says is valuable, but I would like to add one clause to his last point, about proportional representation. Multi-member districts make partisan gerrymandering harder to accomplish (except in Ireland where they have perfected the art of choosing district magnitudes with party advantage in mind). That’s not to say neutral procedures for drawing the boundaries are unimportant. But PR removes much of the centrality that gerrymandering has in the politics of winner-take-all systems.
Seed planted by Bob Richard — 27 April 2010 @ 11:16
In most PR-using countries, the districts are existing administrative divisions and only the magnitude is adjusted periodically. Such a map seems self-evident: no-one wonders why the map was drawn that way decades ago…
This is however not the case any more in Belgium: Flemish and French-speaking parties struggle over the fate of an existing ethnically mixed district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde …
Seed planted by Bancki — 27 April 2010 @ 11:19