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February 18, 2005
I'm amazed
Reading through the comment section of MyDD, specifically in regards to redistricting, it amazes me how little people actively involved in politics actually know about politics sometimes. First of all, let me say that this is not an implicit insult to those who are interested in politics and have gone to blogs to learn more. Many times you will see a very smart comment on the topic of redistricting from someone who doesn't have much experience with the topic...another way of saying that everybody's got something to add to the discussion.
No, my problem is when people will explicitly state something as a fact when clearly they don't know what they are talking about. Specifically, I refer to people who attack Common Cause or other like minded advocacy groups for trying to support Arnold'd redistricting reform because "HE IS A REPUBLICAN" or even worse (as someone wrote today) "Why should we start in a Democratic state? Texas or Florida will never do this."
Now, if someone is innocently asking Why progressives should try to start the ball rolling in a progressive state then I'm not opposed to that and there are a lot of good answers. The problem is that most people who ask this question phrase it rhetorically. And the problem with that is that even though California is a "blue" state, it does not have a Democratic gerrymander in the way that Texas has a Republican gerrymander. In fact, one could argue that the "blue" states of Pennsylvania and Michigan and the "purple" states of Florida and Ohio have much worse Republican gerrymanders than Texas does.
One could even argue that California has more of a Republican gerrymander than many "purple" states. The simple fact of the matter is that under a truly fair plan in California, Democrats could see a loss of one or two seats but could potentially pick up 4 or 5 seats. That alone should be enough of a "selfish" reason to support the reform, if you're a progressive, but getting the ball rolling in the hope that reform could unlock the Republican gerrymanders in states like the aforementioned (PA, OH, MI, FL, TX) is a non-selfish reason to do it.
The simple fact is that with the exception of a few Southern state legislative maps, partisan redistricting has not been kind of late to the Democratic party. If you assume that a blue state has a Democratic gerrymander then you're really showing your ignorance. California's plan, even if it is backed by Arnold, is worthy of a close look by common cause and progressives in general -- even if those progressives consider themselves hardline Democratic partisans.
Posted by Chris at February 18, 2005 04:15 PM
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