California Forming Fair Gerrymandering Commission

Proposition 11, which California voters passed last year, took the job of setting some political district boundaries for state Senate, Assembly and Board of Equalization seats out of the hands of California legislators. But, left Congress in the Legislatures hands.

A 14-member Citizens Redistricting Commission will be drawing those State Senate, Assembly and Board of Equalization District maps next year after the 2010 Census tallies its numbers.

Who got the job of figuring out how citizens would apply? And who will oversee the process of winnowing the applicants down to a 60-person pool of those most qualified?

Why Elaine Howle, state auditor for such a job. She explains that as follows:

“Some have asked why a fairly obscure, non-elected state official would be charged with such an important new job,” Howle writes in a guest op-ed in Friday Sacramento Bee.

“First of all, because I am a non-elected state official, I have not engaged in, and in fact am prohibited from engaging in, the kinds of political activities that elected officials do every day: e.g., fundraising; meeting with lobbyists; becoming active in parties or partisan politics; engaging in statewide or local political campaigns.

“Voters wanted someone without any ties to politics per se, beholden to no one, and who is not looking past the commission’s role to their own next election,” she adds.

Go to http://www.bsa.ca.gov/redistricting for more information. The state auditor’s office will be accepting applications from Dec. 15 through Feb. 12 for the commission, which must be established by the end of next year

Heretofore California’s Legislators “reapportioned” their own, Congressional, and Board of Equalization Districts making it entirely political. The last redistricting after the 2000 census created the infamous 23^rd Congressional District nicknamed the “Ribbon of Shame” running along an often six inch wide coastal strip and looping around Democrat Party enclaves to assure a safe seat for Representative Lois Capps. Originally the Citizens Redistricting Commission was to draw Congressional District lines but that was NOT in the final proposition voters OKd. So the Legislature  will  will do that again.

The purpose of the hopefully independent commission is to draw fair political boundaries – not including Congressional Districts..

California’s, and some other states House of Representatives delegation will change after the 2010 Census as follows: States projected to lose seats after the 2010 census are New York (-2), Ohio (-2), Illinois (-1), Iowa (-1), Louisiana (-1), Massachusetts (-1). Michigan (-1), Missouri (-1) and Pennsylvania (-1).

States projected to gain seats after the 2010 census include Texas (+3), Arizona (+2), Florida (+2), California (+1), Georgia (+1), Nevada (+1) and Utah (+1).

The word gerrymander is a portmanteau of “Gerry” and “salamander“, and is named after Elbridge Gerry (pronounced /ˈɡɛri/; 1744–1814), the governor of Massachusetts from 1810 to 1812, and a supposedly salamander-shaped constituency that he created.

In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill into law that redistricted his state to benefit his Democratic-Republican party. One of the resulting contorted districts was said to resemble a salamander.^[1] The term first appeared in the Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812.

Although the letter g of the eponymous Gerry is pronounced with a voiced velar plosive /ɡ/, so the word gerrymander is most commonly pronounced jerrymander.

In any case it has become a decadal sideshow in the highest traditions of the fabled smoke filled backroom.