“As we anticipated, over 700,000 Californians have overcome great odds and succeeded in placing the gerrymandered State Senate redistricting plan on the November ballot. FAIR will be asking voters in November to vote NO on these faulty senate maps, so that new, fair and competitive districts can be drawn and put into place for the rest of the decade,” said FAIR’s consultant Dave Gilliard.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 27, 2012
Statement from State Senator Mimi Walters:
“We are very disappointed that the Court has apparently allowed their historical distaste for the reapportionment process to cloud their judgment and view of the law. The court’s opinion is short-sighted and disrespectful of the over 700,000 Californian’s who signed referendum petitions in the hope of getting a fair Senate redistricting plan for 2012 that respects the state constitution.”
Statement from FAIR consultant Dave Gilliard:
“Sadly, the Chief Justice applied a flawed, politically-based precedent established by former Chief Justice Rose Bird, who was removed from office by the voters for repeatedly ignoring the constitution and the will of the voters.”
How left-wing activists stacked the deck in favor of Golden State Democrats
By Steven Greenhut at Reason.com
…Many moderate Republicans and good-government reformers didn’t realize that the state’s highly sophisticated Democratic machine would rig the game so strongly in their own favor. Good government activists, such as Charles T. Munger Jr., who donated $7 million to the 2010 Prop. 20 redistricting ballot initiative that expanded the citizens redistricting system to U.S. House seats, believed that such a measure would really help take the politicians out of the redistricting process and empower citizens.
Early articles about redistricting sounded woefully naïve. Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson actually believed redistricting would increase the power of the GOP and they were concerned about getting support from Democrats, but the end result is a massive power shift from the declining GOP to the Democratic Party.
Let this be a reminder of how easily any reform—no matter how appealing it may sound—can and will be manipulated by those who are most skilled at the political game. In California, reform measures promoted by political novices will undoubtedly be manipulated by the pros. And as the GOP becomes less relevant, it seems less capable of recruiting highly skilled politicos who can duke it out with the Dems…
Read more at Reason.com
By STEVEN GREENHUT
Over the summer, Calwatchdog published a series of articles documenting the way that the political Left exploited the redistricting process to assure strong gains for the Democratic Party. The report included an exclusive interview with a redistricting commission member who alleged partisan behavior by his supposedly non-partisan commission colleagues, but the series didn’t cause much attention in the media, the Capitol or among the public. Apparently, no one was surprised that a commission formed with the best of intentions — i.e., taking backroom political deal-making out of the process by which political lines were drawn — was cynically manipulated to create a partisan advantage.
But the story is getting renewed life now that the left-leaning ProPublica investigative journalism Web site published a new report called “How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission.” If you weren’t cynical about the state of California’s political system before reading it, you will be now. It reveals several lessons for California political observers, ranging from the ruthlessness of the state’s powerful Democratic Party, to the utter incompetence of the state’s fading Republican Party. It also reminds us that even the best-intentioned good-government reforms may make matters worse if proponents of reform don’t grapple with political reality.
Read more at Cal Watch Dog
Democrats in the House of Representatives secretly influenced California’s redistricting process by coordinating the testimonies of political operatives who posed as community organizers before the state’s new citizens redistricting commission, according to a story by ProPublica.
However, those who drew the lines denied efforts to influence them were successful and the number of Democratic districts are about proportionally to the number of Democratic voters.
According to ProPublica, California Democrats met secretly to design a map that would protect incumbents, then enlisted aides and lobbyists to present coordinated testimony before the California Citizens Redistricting Commission that would push the commission to design districts “that coincided with the party’s interests.”
Read more at The Orange County Register.
As the story points out, Democrats had long controlled the state’s redistricting. When that power was taken away from them in the form of an independent commission, they had to find another means of establishing some control – and that’s what they did.
Republicans have been furious over the new map, and much anger has been directed toward House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, who some members of the GOP delegation believe hasn’t done enough to combat the map. This story will only pour salt on the wound.
Read more at Politico.
This spring, a group of California Democrats gathered at a modern, airy office building just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The meeting was House members only — no aides allowed — and the mission was seemingly impossible.
In previous years, the party had used its perennial control of California’s state Legislature to draw district maps that protected Democratic incumbents. But in 2010, California voters put redistricting in the hands of a citizens’ commission where decisions would be guided by public testimony and open debate.
Read more at ProPublica
California’s Democratic lawmakers were not in charge of the redistricting process this year, thanks to the new Citizens Redistricting Commission.
But according to a ProPublica investigation, the state’s Democrats found ways to influence the commission nonetheless, including inventing local advocacy groups to push for their preferred maps.
The effort appears to have paid off. The new Congressional map could give Democrats as many as five new seats next year.
Read more at the LA Weekly
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, December 21, 2011
Moments ago the San Jose Mercury News broke a story on how the Citizens Redistricting Commission was secretly influenced by Democrat party leaders. The news story is based on a report by a non partisan, New York based, public interest group called ProPublica. ProPublica is an independent, non-profit, Pulitzer prize winning newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.
“This news story proves what we suspected all along, that the entire redistricting process was manipulated and corrupted by the Democrats and their agents,” said Dave Gilliard, consultant for the group Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting. “This calls into question whether any laws were broken and if the districts were legally created.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, December 2, 2011
SACRAMENTO, CA – A petition has been filed with the California Supreme Court asking the court to begin the process of preparing for the likely qualification of the State Senate Districts Referendum.
Over 711,000 referendum signatures were submitted to counties on or before November 15th and are now being verified. The measure blocks implementation of the Citizens Redistricting Commission’s Senate lines unless and until voters approve them next November.
“Because we filed well over 700,000 signatures, we are able to ask the Court to consider interim remedies when the referendum qualifies and to stay the use of the Redistricting Commission’s Senate maps for the 2012 elections,” said Senator Mimi Walters.
Use of the Commission’s Senate districts would effectively eviscerate the right of referendum which the people specifically added in Proposition 20.
The first request is for the court to appoint a special master to advise it and then to suspend operation of the in lieu filing process only for the 20 odd-numbered Senate districts that are up for election in 2012. Suspension would not affect ballot access for candidates: it is a little-used procedure to allow all candidates, whether indigent or not, to reduce the amount of their filing fees. For Senate, the full filing fee is $952.91.
The main request is for the court to be prepared to implement Senate Districts other than the soon-to-be stayed Redistricting Commission lines in time for candidates to file for office. The filing period opens on February 9, 2012. We have suggested two options that could be implemented swiftly by the court. Those options are to use the current odd-numbered 2001 Senate districts for 2012 only or to “nest” the Redistricting Commission’s unchallenged Assembly districts in order to make new Senate districts. The Commission ignored the Constitutional provision regarding nesting two Assembly districts into one Senate district, “to the extent possible” when it adopted lines in August.
