Subject: Help Us Demand Real Redistricting Reform

From: "Kathay Feng, Executive Director" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:12:53 -0800

Dear Common Cause California Activist,

We need your help to get California politicians to hold hearings on redistricting reform.  Because you've helped turn up the heat, the California legislature is closer than ever to passing meaningful redistricting reform legislation.  But we have to keep the pressure on so that they don't delay - or worse yet - try to ignore the issue.

As the L.A. Times editorialized (Feb. 28, 2005), "The drawing of crooked district lines by lawmakers is the ultimate conflict of interest, one that needs to end."  And it can with your help.  But time is of the essence.

Please call the following four leaders of our state legislature and urge them to support real and substantive redistricting reform.  Right now, members of the California Legislature are home for Spring recess and they are especially attuned to their constituents.  Call these leaders and ask them to hold public hearings on redistricting reform and vote in favor of a plan that includes a fair process for drawing political lines and for public participation and transparency:

  -Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles):(213)620-4646

  -Senate President Pro-tem Don Perata (D-Oakland):(510)286-1333

  -Chair of the Assembly Elections Committee Representative Tom Umberg (D-Anaheim):(714)939-8469

  -Chair of the Senate Elections Committee Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach):(310)318-6994

These leaders are key to real redistricting reform for California.  It is essential that they hear from you.  Please ask them to:

1) Hold hearings right away on redistricting reform.  We are supporting two redistricting bills: SCA 3 and ACAX1 3.  These two bills adhere to Common Cause redistricting principles by taking the power to redraw congressional and legislative districts out of the hands of the partisan legislature and putting it into the hands of a truly independent commission.

2) Bring these bills to a vote.  There is clearly room for improvement to both bills, like strengthening provisions for diversity on the commission, and taking out mid-decade redistricting from ACAX1 3.  However, we need to push our elected officials to act, so that we can have the hard discussions to create better bill language, and get the votes needed to pass a bill by a 2/3 vote. 

We need this reform now more than ever.  In 2001, the California legislators drew districts to protect themselves from competition.  And it worked.  No incumbent and neither party lost a single seat in the 2004 election.  If we want politicians to be accountable to the people, we have to change the redistricting system that creates safe seats.

Let us know how your calls went by posting on our blog at http://www.commonblog.com/story/2005/3/23/15826/0725.  We will keep you updated as further developments unfold in our redistricting campaign.
 
Thank you again for all you do for Common Cause in California.

Sincerely,

Kathay Feng
Executive Director, Common Cause California

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