Although the selection process for the California Redistricting
Commission was seemingly designed to bar anyone with any expertise, it
failed in at least one respect. One of the 60 finalists is Paul
McKaskle, who was the special master for the CA Supreme Court in the
court-drawn redistrictings of the 1970s and the 1990s. According to
my analysis in a 1998 paper, the districts he drew in the 1970s were
pro-Democratic, and in the 1990s, pro-Republican, correlating exactly
with the partisan composition of the Supreme Court each time. See
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~kousser/redistricting/Reapportionment%20Wars.pdf
When I noted McKaskle's presence on the panel of 60, I emailed Dan
Walters, the Sacramento Bee columnist, to see why he hadn't done a blog
entry on the fact. Here's his blog in response, which contains more
information about McKaskle (and a political slant that I'm skeptical
of):
SacBee Capitol Alert Blog
The latest on California politics and government
October 21, 2010
Redistricting commission could have redistricting expert
Some critics of the independent commission that's being formed to redraw
districts for state legislators and members of the Board of Equalization
have questioned whether it would have enough knowledge of the arcane
process to do the job.
The answer may depend on whether Paul McKaskle, one of the 60 finalists
for the Citizens Redistricting Commission, survives the remainder of the
selection process, which includes peremptory challenges by legislative
leaders.
McKaskle, a long-time law professor, was chief counsel to the Supreme
Court masters who were appointed after the 1970 and 1990 censuses to
redraw legislative and congressional maps after redistricting plans
stalled in the Legislature. In both cases, a Republican governor (Ronald
Reagan and later Pete Wilson) and a Democratic Legislature were at
loggerheads.
One of McKaskle's letters of recommendation, in fact, is from Eugene Lee,
a veteran political science professor at UC-Berkeley who was the chief
technician in both of those court-ordered redistricting plans.
Together, McKaskle and Lee created districts under which Democrats made
major gains in the 1970s and Republicans increased their numbers in the
1990s. While both were subject to partisan carping at the time,
redistricting scholars generally have concluded that neither plan was
drawn to help either party and the results were largely determined by
other factors.
McKaskle, a political independent, also has been a consultant on local
government redistricting and has written extensively on the subject. But
whether the Legislature's leadership would want to have such a recognized
expert on the commission remains uncertain.
Categories: Redistricting
Read more:
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/10/redistricting-commission-could.html#ixzz133VtGkG5
Morgan
Prof. of History and Social Science, Caltech
surface mail: 228-77 Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125-7700
phone 626-395-4080, fax 626-405-9841
home page:
<
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~kousser/Kousser.html>
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