Where do Democratic presidential candidates stand on gerrymandering? What about HR1? Let’s ask them
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2019/12/where-do-democratic-presidential.html
By Kathay Feng, Special to CalMatters |
With California’s new relevance in the presidential primary, it is
absolutely critical that we ask candidates how they plan to lead the country
out of the political impasse and take-no-prisoners battle ground that America
has become.
Much of the analysis has centered on who can win against Trump,
and some of the candidates have made this their only measuring stick. But if we
are to defend our republican democracy for the next generation against internal
chaos and foreign interference, the real question is, after the election, what
does group therapy for our national trauma look like?
California has a lot of lessons to offer the nation on how to walk
that path toward national healing.
Let’s start with redistricting, the process of drawing voting maps
using decennial census data that, in most states, makes mixed martial arts cage
fights look tame.
When a UFC match is finished, one fighter advances and the other
goes home. In redistricting, incumbent politicians not only win an election,
they get to set the rules for the next match and every election for a decade.
Here in California until 2008, we drew election district lines the
same way most states still do, giving lawmakers the power to draw voting maps
for themselves and for members of Congress. Instead of voters choosing their
politicians, politicians chose their voters.
I was a young attorney in 2001 organizing the Asian American and
Pacific Islander communities to tell their stories at legislative redistricting
hearings. For many people we helped, this was the first time they testified
before any group of lawmakers.
It was clear that politicians having the power to draw their own
election maps and ensure uncontested power for the rest of the decade bred
arrogance, privilege, and even racism—and was poisoning our democracy.
In 2008, I led efforts to fundamentally change California’s
redistricting process.
With an unusual coalition of left, right and center allies, we
created the nation’s first independent citizens redistricting commission. The
power to draw voting maps was taken from politicians and given to people like
you and me.
Today our redistricting process is independent and community-led
with the goal of keeping communities together in the new maps. No longer behind
closed doors, drawing voting lines is conducted openly and transparently.
Fourteen commissioners—Democrats, Republicans and
independents—listen to testimony from people around the state, and then have to
talk with each other to work through hard decisions and come up with a common
solution.
This is a model for the rest of the country. Oregon, Nevada and
Virginia could be the next states to adopt redistricting reforms, and they’re
all states where Democrats hold power. The question is, will any of the
Democratic candidates embrace this model—and not just for red states, but
for states where Democrats hold power as well?
Any plan to reform our democracy and unrig the redistricting
process requires us to work across party lines and champion solutions that lift
all our voices. Labor and chambers of commerce. AARP and Generation Z. Farmers
and city dwellers. Newcomers and natives. I want to know how these candidates
can inspire us to work together as a nation.
California Common Cause’s leadership extends beyond independent
redistricting. Our state has blazed the trail in strengthening our democracy
and empowering the voices of all residents. Through years of research,
coalition building, and advocacy, we now have voter registration that is
online, integrated at DMVs, and available all the way through election
day.
California recognizes that people are busy. Voting by mail makes
their lives less hectic. The state even pays for postage. Several counties send
everyone a vote-by mail ballot and make vote centers available for several
weeks leading up to election day.
At the national level, there is a bill, The For the People Act,
HR1, by Congressman John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat, and 236 co-sponsors.
HR1 would make these reforms that already are law in California a national
standard.
It passed the House, where Democrats are in control, but stalled
in the Republican-controlled Senate. Do any of these Democratic candidates have
a plan for how to bridge the partisan canyon in Congress to pass important
bills such as HR1?
We are in a time when there are so many people who seek to sow
divisions among Americans. I’m looking for the presidential candidate who
presents a vision for how people can find common ground through uncommon
solutions to create a democracy that works for all of us.
_____
Kathay Feng is executive director of California Common Cause
and Common Cause’s national redistricting director, kfeng@commoncause.org. She wrote
this commentary for CalMatters, a public interest journalism venture committed
to explaining how California's Capitol works and why it matters.
Post a Comment