California begins a new era in redistricting

Reporting from Sacramento —  A handful of everyday Californians were chosen Thursday to tackle the politically incendiary task of redrawing the state’s voting districts — a job that voters decided to take away from political insiders.

A bookstore owner from Yolo County, a retired engineer from Claremont, an insurance agent from San Gabriel and an attorney from Norco are among those who will determine how legislative districts are drawn as part of an experiment that promises to drastically change the state’s political landscape.

Until now, the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts were drawn every 10 years by state legislators in a process that critics said was often skewed for partisan advantage or to protect incumbents. Many officeholders have been able to skate from election to election without much in the way of serious competition.

But through a series of ballot measures, California voters have set the state on a radically different course with an unknown outcome. In 2008, voters gave the job of drawing legislative district lines to a new Citizens Redistricting Commission. This month, voters gave the commission additional powers, handing them authority over congressional districts. And Thursday, the first members of that new commission were picked by lottery.

Adding to the political upheaval is a completely new system for choosing candidates that abandons the current system of primaries for each party. Instead, under another measure approved by voters, candidates from all political parties will compete in the same primary starting in 2012, and the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election even if they are members of the same party. The two changes together will rattle a system that for decades has protected incumbent officeholders.

“For the first time, districts will be drawn by people who will be knowledgeable, impartial and as diverse as the state,” said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause. “The new lines will not be drawn to simply protect an incumbent’s ability to win reelection over and over again.”

What effect those changes will have, however, remains anyone’s guess.

Backers of the proposals have argued that the combination of the open primary and nonpartisan redistricting will be more competitive elections, a dilution of the power of party bosses, and candidates who are more responsive to voters than the entrenched special interests that bankroll political campaigns.

But none of that is guaranteed. Experts at the Center for Government Studies in L.A. have pointed out that one unintended effect of the changes is that winning in an election is about to become a lot more costly for candidates, because more competitive races take more money. That means, of course, candidates will probably have to hit up special interests for more cash.

The plan to have everyday citizens redraw political boundaries has been backed by many centrist Republicans, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and vigorously opposed by Democratic leaders and labor groups. Democratic leaders, who currently control the process because of their majorities in the state Legislature, tried to eliminate the citizens panel with an initiative two weeks ago that was rejected by state voters.

All that might suggest that Republicans will be the beneficiaries of the new process. And while that might happen, some analysts say just the opposite could be true.

Current districts were largely drawn to protect incumbents in both parties, and with Democrats’ large edge in voter registration in California, some Republican incumbents may be the biggest losers in a more competitive environment. The real fear of Democratic officeholders, these analysts say, is not Republicans, but the possibility of a competitive primary in a newly drawn district.

The final outcome of the process could be politically momentous, but its first steps on Thursday were prosaic. Using bingo balls and a hand-cranked wire bingo cage, State Auditor Elaine Howle drew eight names from a group of 36, conducting separate drawings of Democrats, Republicans and voters affiliated with neither major party.

The candidate pool for the commission began with 30,000 applicants, which was winnowed through a series of steps and ended up with 60 names picked by a review panel chosen by Howle. The panel’s mandate was to seek out “analytical skills, the ability to be impartial, and an appreciation for California’s diverse demographics and geography.”

Legislative leaders were empowered to remove 24 people from the pool — no reasons needed to be given — which they did last week.

The eight chosen Thursday — three Democrats, three Republicans and two independents — now will pick six more people from the pool to join them by year’s end, with ethnic and geographic diversity on the panel a goal. They include four Asian Americans, two whites, one Latino and one African American. There are five women and three men. The group leans toward the more affluent. A report on their economic status shows one earns more than $250,000 annually, four make between $125,000 and $250,000, two make between $75,000 and $125,000 and one makes under $75,000.

Each member of the panel will be paid $300 a day for the time they spend working on redistricting.

“I feel very lucky,” said Claremont City Councilman Peter Yao, a retired engineer and Republican selected to serve on the panel. “I saw this as an opportunity to help carry out changes. We have a tough job ahead.”

Already various advocacy groups are voicing concern about who is and is not represented on the panel: nobody from the Central Valley or Orange County, too few Latinos and low-income Californians, and too many Republicans are among the complaints.

The initiative that established the commission requires that its members include five Republicans, five Democrats, and four people who belong to another party or are decline-to-state. That gives Republicans a slightly larger share of the commission than they have of the state’s registered voters and Democrats a slightly smaller share.

Others say a rule that made anyone who has given more than $2,000 to a political candidate in a year ineligible was a mistake.

“Whoever these people are, they will be run by whoever the staff is, because they will not have a clue about anything,” said John Burton, chairman of the state Democratic Party.

Once the full membership is chosen, the panel will use 2010 census data to redraw the district lines for the 2012 election for 40 state Senate seats, 80 Assembly seats and four seats on the state Board of Equalization. The panel will also draw new district boundaries for California’s 53 congressional seats. Each district must have the same population.

Commissioners must also take into account other constraints, including the federal Voting Rights Act, which is designed to make sure minority groups are not shut out of the political process.

The other commissioners selected Thursday are:

--Cynthia Dai, a Democrat from San Francisco who is chief executive of a marketing firm and lectures at UC Berkeley about leadership and teamwork.

--Elaine Kuo, a Democrat from Mountain View who is a full-time caregiver for her elderly father and previously worked as a senior research analyst at UCLA.

--Jeanne Raya, a Democrat from San Gabriel who is a principal at an insurance firm.

--Vincent Barabba, a Republican from Capitola who founded a company that tracks shopper preference trends.

--Jodie Filkins Webber, a Republican attorney from Norco.

--Stanley Forbes, a decline-to-state voter from Esparto in Yolo County who owns a bookstore and runs a family farm.

--Connie Galambos Malloy, a decline-to-state voter from Oakland and advocate for low-income urban residents.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Times staff writer Evan Halper contributed to this report.