Cain Responds to Quinn on California Redistricting Commission

In response to Tony Quinn's comments in this post, Bruce Cain emails to me for posting the following comments:

Tony is indeed a friend, but he has been seriously misled as to the facts. First Karin is a registered decline to state whose biggest issue is more dogparks. Secondly, and most importantly, he is right that it would be inappropriate for me to draw lines for the commission but wrong to think that I have any interest in doing so. I will have nothing to do with the Commission's technical services nor derive one cent from any contract that Karin might get. That is a solemn pledge. Thirdly, the commission is putting its technical services out to bid, not sole sourcing it. Fourthly, the statewide database has been run for two decades with no complaint about bias---we provide data in a nonpartisan way to all members of the public. Lastly, the Commission makes the line decisions. The job of the line drawers is to follow the direction of the Commission. Then there are the various false statements about my drawing lines for the Democrats in 90's and 2000 by others, not Tony, but they are too silly to respond to.

"Health Care Challenge Could Trigger Recusal Debate"

Zachary Roth blogs at "The Lookout."

"Avoiding an Electoral Lost Decade: What Lessons Will We Learn in the 2011 Redistricting Cycle?"

Andrew Thomas has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

With the decennial redistricting cycle starting anew in 2011, there is an opportunity to learn from the lessons of the past cycle as legislators draw their own boundaries in most states, and independent commissions draw them in the others. While the use of commissions has been trumpeted as a way of improving electoral systems, there has been little effective difference between commission-based and legislative-based electoral maps in terms of the standards of electoral symmetry and responsiveness. I recommend that no matter which method is used by a state for drawing their legislative and congressional boundaries, states should bear these factors in mind as they redraw their maps in the coming year.

"The Story of Citizens United v. FEC"

Movie trailer.

California Appellate Court Holds that Party Suing to Protect Party First Amendment Associational Rights Has Right to Attorneys Fees

See Wilson v. San Luis Obispo County Democratic Central Committee.

CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen Will Run in Special Congressional Election to Replace Rep. Jane Harman

See here. This likely will be one of the first races under the top two primary in which the top two vote getters will almost certainly be from the same political party. (The other prominent candidate announced so far is LA City Council member Janice Hahn.)

As top two gets underway, Republicans are considering new party nomination processes.

I Thought It Was Republicans (along with Good Government Types) Who Supported the Prop. 11 Redistricting Plan in California

Now Tony Quinn predicts Republicans "will be screwed" by the new maps. If I'm remembering the arcana of the citizen commission, I believe any plan would have to be approved by a majority of Republicans (and a majority of Democrats, and a majority of DTS commission members). Why does that not prevent what Quinn fears?

UPDATE: Tony Quinn saw this original post and sent along this email:

Glad somebody reads my stuff, and I read yours.

I wanted to show in this article how Republicans could be screwed using the Phil Burton VRA standard -- combine all minority neighborhood no matter how distant into districts in the name of the VRA to increase Democratic registration . I’ve seen how that works, and of course it elects white Democrats. Did this happen in 2001 -- you bet. I was the expert witness in a superior court case against the 2001 bipartisan gerrymander (the one that resulted in less turnover over the past decade than the old Supreme Soviet). I was told that all the screwy districts I challenged were drawn to "enhance the Voting Rights Act." Of course, they were drawn to favor incumbents, mostly anglo Democrats, and to get minorities out of Republican districts. Whenever both parties are happy about a districting plan, you know the people's well being is at risk.

I also wanted to expose what has been happening to the Commission, and sadly the Commissioners seem unaware of it. When the Secretary of State took over staffing the Commission in January they held a secret process to select the staff. No transparency, you could not even get the names of staffers they were considering hiring, let alone their partisan biases. They hired a Democratic registered executive director, and the first thing he did was try to convince the commissioners top hire, via a no bid single source contract, a firm headed by Karin MacDonald (who already had one no bid contract with them) and my old friend from redistricting days past, Professor Bruce Cain. Bruce and Karin have a private business, which is fine, but he was my counterpart as the Democratic consultant in the 1981 redistricting when I was the GOP consultant. Now they are not about to hire me as a counter weight to Bruce (not that want to get back into line drawing, been there done that). They should not be hiring Bruce and Karin on a sole source contract.

Yes, there is plenty to paranoia in the redistricting business, but sometimes even the paranoid can make a good case for it.

Feel free to post this if you'd like.

Tony

Federal District Court in City of Irving Case Rejects Argument that the Constitution's One Person, One Vote Principle Requires the Use of Citizen Voting Age Population rather than Total Population to Draw District Lines

You can find the ruling here.

Are Conservative Justices Undermining the Legitimacy of the Supreme Court?

That's Katrina vanden Heuvel's claim in a WaPo online column. All the evidence I've seen is that Bush v. Gore had no lasting effect on the public's views of the Court's legitimacy. Whether a Court that strikes down the Obama health care law and part of the Voting Rights Act would lose public confidence is an interesting question to consider and potentially test.

"Reformers Call on Representatives to Oppose Amendments to Kill Presidential Public Financing System in Spending Bill"

See this press release.