The California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission has released their first draft of proposed California congressional districts. The commission, formed by Proposition 11 in 2008, could mean the return to sanity of California Politics. But don’t hold your breath.
District lines must be redrawn every ten years to account for changes in population. Under the previous law, districts were drawn by the state legislature who were more concerned with power than the people’s business. So the redistricting process turned into an incumbent protection plan. An entire group of elected officials who were writing the rules for their own election. They write all the other rules for their own election why not let them draw their own districts?
Because of this California’s congressional districts have always been oddly shaped to connect areas of strong support and to average out areas where support is weaker. It’s called gerrymandering and it makes perfect political sence.
During the last round of redistricting in 2000 the 46th district was concocted though the connection of conservative Huntington Beach and Rancho Palos Verdes by way of dirty, liberal Long Beach allowing Orange County Republican Dana Rohrabacher to win and hold office.
There were apparently too many dangerous minorities in Long Beach who wouldn’t buy into Mr. Rohrabacher’s hyper-individualist-fuck-you-I-got-mine-jack philosophy. So the only part of the city that was added to the 46th district was East Long Beach (which might as well have been Orange County anyways), the Port of Long Beach, and a narrow strip of everything south of First St. Anyone who lives here can tell you that there’s only one street south of First and there’s more feral cats than people in the Port.
The district, which is probably one of the most gerrymandered district in the state, was designed to protect Mr. Rohrabacher’s congressional seat so he could conduct the people’s business such as suggesting that Iraq pay for services we’ve rendered (like creating piles of rubble, or blowing up those piles of rubble) or implying that decaying wood and leaves is a more dangerous source of global warming than your car (just kidding, global warming isn’t real!)
And it’s not like Long Beach’s other congressional representative, Democrat Laura Richardson, is any better. Her district stretches from Long Beach all the way up to the low income neighborhoods of Willowbrook and Lynwood. She was named one of the most corrupt members of congress two years in a row by liberal open-government advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
These problems affect California at the state level as well. The state Democrats can’t even convince one Republicans to vote for the budget so they can overcome the ridiculous budget requirements that our current governor put into place in the 70’s. Thanks Jerry!
But like gerrymandering this makes perfect political sense. We shouldn’t expect the Republicans to want to actually do something because they come from districts where the people who live there believe they could live better without the government interfering in their lives (unless it’s the war on terror). And the Democratic districts never saw a program they didn’t like.
Everything becomes a crisis and the system lives on chaos. Constantly on the brink of collapse, we don’t have the time to interpret information and make an informed decision. If we wait the economy will collapse! The state government will shut down! Grandma won’t get her medicare or social security check! The terrorists will attack! And don’t forget about whatever China’s doing, I’m sure it’s scary.
I don’t have much hope that this round of redistricting will change much but it can’t be any worse than the way things are currently done. The government is fundamentally flawed but at least this is a step in the right direction. And anything that gets Dana Rohrabacher out of Long Beach and stuck into Orange County is a good thing in my book. Hopefully, he’ll lose the election and stay there.
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