Anyone out there know any good recipes for crow? I’m preparing to eat some when it comes to one initiative on the ballot: Prop 11.
As I wrote here several months ago in an exchange with Tony Quinn, I’ve long believed that this attempt at redistricting reform was a waste of time and had no chance. (I compared redistricting’s chances to the prospects of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers–always bad). I still believe Prop 11 is probably a waste of time (nothing wrong with ending the conflict of interest, but redistricting won’t do very much to change the mix in the legislature, as the Public Policy Institute of California has shown), but I no longer believe it has no chance.
The latest Field Poll shows Prop 11 with a 45 percent to 30 percent lead. That’s no guarantee of victory — the initiative needs a majority — but things are moving in the right direction. Even if much of the huge undecided vote breaks against the measure, it’s a good bet that Prop 11 will get just enough to put it over the top.
I honestly never thought redistricting would get that close. Redistricting measures have been voted down in California over and over again, no matter how worthy. Prop. 77 in 2005, a far better initiative than Prop 11, fit the pattern. It was undermined by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s association with it and by distrust of non-partisan reform on the part of both partisan Republican and Democratic voters.
This year’s "Yes" campaign has been much better, though I still question the decision to run an anti-politician campaign while using Schwarzenegger and other politicians constantly at public events. But any win on redistricting is a big win politically. Why? Because a win would show that there is a majority out there for political reform, and it could give a boost to future efforts at more profound political reform — open primaries, changes in the make-up of the legislature, and even initiative reform. That may be the best argument for Prop 11: it’s a very small but significant first step on the path to real reform.