Daniel Weintraub: Voters beware: Politicians will lie to kill Proposition 11

By Daniel Weintraub , dweintraub@sacbee.com

last updated: July 01, 2008 08:58:51 PM

Californians will get a chance to make history this November, an opportunity to seize control of their government from the politicians, handlers and consultants who have rigged the game to serve their own interests.

Proposition 11 would take from the Legislature its power to draw political boundaries and give that job to an independent bipartisan commission that would operate under strict guidelines designed to ensure fairness for all parties and protect the rights of minorities.

The process now allows the politicians to choose their voters by drawing district lines almost guaranteed to preserve the jobs of incumbents and freeze in place the partisan breakdown in the Legislature. Under Proposition 11, the voters would choose the politicians, which is the way a representative democracy is supposed to work.

But there's one big problem. The insiders in the California Democratic Party oppose the measure, even though some prominent and respected Democrats are working for its passage. And if the party or its leaders raise and spend millions of dollars to confuse the issue, voters will almost certainly reject the reform, dooming the state to another decade of bitterly polarized politics.

Already, opponents have formed a committee to begin raising money to fight the initiative and have set up a Web site laying out the first arguments against the measure.

Those arguments are misleading at best, if not outright lies. But voters will be bombarded by them this fall as desperate politicians do whatever it takes to maintain their grip on power. They will claim that black is white, night is day and the sun rises in the West if they think it will help them kill this measure.

The half-truths start with the committee's name – Citizens for Accountability. In fact, the group was formed by politicians to fight accountability, not to preserve it. Its work will be financed with contributions from interest groups with a stake in state policy who need to donate to legislators to stay on their good side.

Then there is the committee's slogan: "Stop the power grab." Proposition 11, the group says, is "just another scheme by politicians who want power for themselves." But the opposite is true. Proposition 11 was written and is supported by a broad array of reform-minded citizen groups, including Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, AARP and California Forward, to take power away from the politicians.

The propaganda also suggests that the reform would threaten California's diversity. But the measure actually states explicitly that any new political boundaries would have to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, which protects the rights of ethnic minorities in the political process. In fact, minorities would probably be better off under the new rules because white incumbents would no longer be able to draw lines that use minority voting blocs to preserve their positions of power.

A few entrenched Democrats are terrified because the commission Proposition 11 creates would have five Democrats, five Republicans and four members registered to neither major party. They are saying that Democrats should control the commission because they have a plurality of voters in the state. They note that many Republicans, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, support the measure and helped raise money to put it on the ballot.

But many Democrats also are backing the initiative. They include former Rep. Leon Panetta, who was President Clinton's chief of staff; former state Controller Steve Westly, who ran for governor in 2006 and might do so again; and Reed Hastings, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who founded NetFlix and has supported a variety of Democratic candidates and causes. Former Gov. Gray Davis also supports the initiative. None of these people would be backing Proposition 11 if it were a partisan power grab by Republicans.

With the Democratic power structure opposed, however, Proposition 11 faces an uphill battle. Recent history shows that, across the country, citizen attempts to create independent panels to draw new districts almost always fail when the majority party in a state opposes them. The November ballot will be crowded with the presidential campaign and at least 10 other ballot measures, many of which will get more media attention than Proposition 11.

But Tony Quinn, a Republican analyst and public relations consultant who once helped the politicians draw the lines but now supports Proposition 11, thinks the measure could be helped by the public's massive dissatisfaction with the Legislature and a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment. He thinks the opposition campaign could backfire.

"Voters are angry at the political class, which they see as arrogant, selfish and out of touch," Quinn told me. "The more that self-serving legislators and their flunkies oppose the initiative, the more likely it is that voters will figure out they can strike a blow against these very people they rightly blame for so many of California's ills."

That could be wishful thinking. Never underestimate the ability of politicians to protect their own hides. But if there were ever a year when it might be possible to get voters to stop, think and see through a deceptive campaign designed by politicians to confuse them, this might be it.

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