California Propositions Thread

[Verily]

Why all the hate for Prop 11?  It's the best idea for a redistricting commission I've read yet.  Are there any particular flaws or loopholes in it that everyone dislikes?

Personally, I'd rather it contained no Democrats or Republicans. I'd probably vote for it anyway, but that provision irritates me.

[Verily]

Compliance with the VRA is required?

Ugh. In that case, count two new votes against Prop 11.

I'm not a fan myself, but are you saying the state should ignore federal law?

The initiative should state that race, ethnicity, language, age, citizenship, or registration status of residents should not be taken into account when drawing districts.  Draw reasonable boundaries and let someone else take the state to federal court for violating the VRA.  No reasonable person would want to subject 14 of his fellow Californians to the creepiness of having to account for racial voting patterns.

But the worst part of the initiative is leaving congressional redistricting in the hands of the legislature.  Almost half of the current congressional delegation previously served in the legislature.  You have to complex process to choose the commission, with all kinds of restrictions on who may be a member so as to avoid even the whiff of political influence, and then leave congressional redistricting in the hands of body that is too corrupt to draw legislative district boundaries.

Are you sure congressional redistricting is left to the legislature? If so it would make me 10 times more likely to vote for it. I would want fair congressional redistricting as well only if the rest of the country did it as well. I do think better districts need to be created in California but I am not sure this is the answer. The prop is hopelessly confusing. 8 random citizens, who have voted in 2 of last 3 general elections, are selected and then they select 6 more or something. Also no relatives of politicians or lobbyists are allowed. It sounds great on paper maybe but how are they going to implement it. Oh well.

FWIW, "fair" districting in California wouldn't radically change the House delegation's composition anyway. It would doom some incumbents, both Democrats and Republicans (Loretta Sanchez maybe most notably), and create more year-to-year turnover, but the current delegation is pretty representative of what a fair system would give. California is not a small state like Iowa where one party could conceivably win most of the seats with only just over half the vote in a fair system.

I think it's disgusting that the citizens are voting on most [any?] of these things.  Since when is 51% of the masses capable of making smart policy decisions?  No one who votes is even going to read the entire bill.

The entire point of representative democracy is to hire professionals who can get down and dirty with the law and treat it professionally.  Propositions are a way to surrender every single individual law to digestable 30-second soundbytes funded by special interests.

I support 1a because politicians need a electorate-given mandate to take such a big decision and when I visit California in 10 years it'd be nice to have some good transportation.  Arnold supports it haha.

I'll probably have a long rant about how Prop 13 ruined California's economy permanently and why propositions are evil after the elections, but it's coming.

Are you sure you're a Libertarian? Or even a libertarian?

Part of being a Libertarian is assuming the masses are stupid since they don't support your ideology. Of course, he's also right. Referenda are disgusting perversions which should be banned.