MONTEREY PARK – The traditional manner in which electoral districts are drawn by legislators is coming to an end. Beginning on September 2011, districts will be drawn by a 14-member commission selected by the State Auditor’s Office. In November 2008, California voters had approved Proposition 11, which is known as the Voters First Act, and it will forever change the way the redistricting process is done in California.
Redistricting is done every ten years, and districts are drawn and redrawn based on changes in population and demographics in the state. These numbers would be known after the results of the 2010 national census are tabulated. Before Proposition 11, redistricting was the job of the State Congress.
Redistricting is undertaken every one decade to ensure that changes in the state’s population and demographics are incorporated in re-redrawn and newly-created districts. "This equates to a democratic ideal of one person one vote," says Margarita Fernandez, CPA, and Chief of Public Affairs of the California State Auditor’s Office. She said that after Voters’ First Act was approved, the responsibility of redrawing the district lines would now fall on a 14-member commission that would be representative of the state’s ethnic make-up.
The act places responsibility of forming the commission and the selection and the application processes in the hands of the State Auditor’s Office. The commission will be ultimately composed of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four members that do not belong to either of the aforesaid parties. As of Tuesday, February 2, 15,000 Californians have applied; 750 of those are from the Asian Pacific American community. The State Auditor’s Office has an online application portal that can be accessed by logging on to www.wedrawthelines.ca.gov.
Applicants whose initial applications have been approved would then move to the second phase of the process called supplemental application, in which the applicants will be requested to write a 500-word max. essay 500-word that would be reviewed by a 3-member, multi-party review panel composed of state auditors after the pool is pared down to 60 of the most qualified applicants. The final 14 that would serve as commissioners of the Citizens Redistricting Commission will be drawn from that pool of 60 applicants. They will begin their term in September 2011 and end after ten years. The application deadline is on Friday, February 12, 2010.
Who qualifies?
If you are a registered voter who participated in the last three statewide general elections; have not changed your party affiliation in the past five years, and have passed rigorous conflict-of-interest requirements, you qualify. If you have been, in the last ten years, appointed to, elected to, or a political candidate for California state or Congressional office; been a lobbyist or served as paid staff or consultant to the Governor or California congressional, legislative, or state Board of Equalization member; or contributed $2,000 or more in a year to a California candidate, you don’t qualify.
"We want to make sure that we reach out to all applicants so that we can have a commission that reflects the diversity of the state that we live in," Fernandez said during a group discussion held at the Empress Harbor Restaurant in Monterey Park. Aside from Fernandez, the group also included Jay F. Chen, Vice President of Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District; Henry Lo, Vice President of Garvey Unified School District; and Deanna Kitamura, Statewide Redistricting and Voting Rights Project Manager of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC).
"In California, there’s a lot of political gridlock, and has a lot of issues in the proposition system, term limits, etc, in this system that we have," said Jay Chen. "These issues prevent us from moving forward, and the way that redistricting has been done also contributed to these problems, because in the past, districts were drawn by legislators themselves," Chen opined.
He said that those legislators had their interest in mind when they were creating seats, resulting in safe Democratic and Republican seats. "There really was no competition during general elections; competition happens in the primaries," Chen stated. He added that system led to candidates having to campaign toward more extreme elements of the party. "In the process – because of these gerrymandering -- lots of community interests have been divided, and in my opinion, the Asian Pacific American community has been hurt particularly hard," Chen said.
"As a result, when people get to Sacramento, there’s very little room for compromise because of the crucible that they go through to get to where they are," Chen said. "If you have been turned off by politics, now is the perfect chance to get involved," offers Chen. "You will get to reshape California’s political future in the next ten years."
( Publsihed February 6, 2010 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. A8 )
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