Reform

Recently, I have been talking with people about the upcoming primary elections. I've been finding that some are just not interested in participating in California's June primary.

A common thread in these conversations is a feeling that choices are limited. Regardless of the individual's partisanship and given that the legislative districts in our area are so heavily gerrymandered to favor one of the two major parties, some think they don't have meaningful choices in the upcoming primary.

In recent years, I've walked the halls of Congress, meeting with staff members to discuss election reform.

But in my visits, I don't get face-to-face access with members of Congress that real lobbyists receive. Lobbyists get better access due to personal connections, campaign contributions and the many other favors they provide to legislators. It's these behind closed doors meetings where the real business in Washington gets conducted, meetings that typical constituents rarely receive.

And that's the problem with how business is done today in Washington.

The other day, a colleague asked me about redistricting reform in California. He had three questions. Why do we need it, how do we do it, and why now?

We need to fix how legislative boundaries are drawn in California for a few simple reasons. One reason is that today's districts do not respect local communities, but instead our state is carved into bizarre districts whose primary purpose is to reelect incumbents.

It was just a year ago, back in January 2005, when Gov. Schwarzenegger said in his State of the State Address, "This year we must heal the patient" (the "patient", in his odd metaphor, being the state of California). To heal the patient, the governor argued that we had to do two things: reform the way the government spends money and the way the government operates.