Districts may loose partisan look

Dave Brooks

Part of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s Congressional district disappears

when the tide rolls in, the saying goes.

It’s been compared to a telephone receiver, Mickey Mouse ears and

the less imaginative two balls connected by a string. Beginning in

Republican-dominated Palos Verdes, the 46th Congressional District

snakes along the coast south, narrowly avoiding the more liberal Long

Beach, and captures a big chunk of northern Orange County including

all of Huntington Beach.

The result: a carefully drawn district where Republicans outnumber

Democrats nearly two to one, and Rohrabacher, a Republican, squashed

his Democratic opponent Jim Brandt in the 2004 election by an even

greater margin.

This “safe district” was created by the state Legislature in 2001

to maintain the partisan status quo, but now Gov. Arnold

Schwarzenegger wants to change the way political lines are drawn in

the California. Earlier this month, the governor embarked on a

statewide campaign to promote several reform packages he might put to

a special election in November. Among those reforms is a proposal to

take redistricting out of the hands of legislators and give the job

to a nonpartisan panel of judges.

Safe districts where one political party has an obvious advantage

over another tend to produce legislators from the extreme wings of

either party, political analysts say, and less cooperation and

compromise at the state capitol.

The governor’s proposal aims to create districts based on more

traditional geographic and political boundaries, theoretically

resulting in more close elections and moderate politicians who have

to cater to the needs of both parties. Schwarzenegger also wants the

lines drawn quickly, by the 2006 election. Redistricting normally

takes place at the beginning of each decade when new census data is

available.

Redistricting would almost certainly mean the redrawing of

Rohrabacher’s district, but even with new lines, it’s not likely that

the 46th Congressional District will be going blue any time soon,

said UC Irvine political scientist Mark Petracca.

“Will you get many competitive districts in Orange County? No, but

you’ll probably get more than we’ve already got,” he said.

Not a single congressional incumbent in California has lost in a

general election since state legislators redrew the political

boundaries in 2001 in a compromise deal that locked in the number of

seats for each party. What was once the 45th district became the

46th, capturing a large chunk of conservative Palos Verdes. The move

that transformed that coastal Los Angeles constituency from a

competitive Los Angeles-area district where liberals edged

conservatives by only two percentage points, to one that was

predominately Democratic.

Rohrabacher Chief of Staff Rick Dykema said he’d like to see the

lines brought back to their pre-2001 levels where Rohrabacher

represented more inland Orange County cities such as like Stanton,

Garden Grove and Westminster. Under the governor’s proposal, map

makers would be strongly encouraged to prevent congressional

districts from crossing county lines, and do their best to include

entire cities whenever possible. Federal law also requires that all

districts be contiguous, contain the same amount of people and not be

drawn to isolate minority communities.

That leaves relatively little wiggle room, Dykema said.

“Strictly following the rules, you end up with predetermined

results,” he said.

No matter how the map is drawn, Republicans will continue to

dominate Orange County, said county GOP leader Scott Baugh.

“Orange County is so overwhelmingly Republican, there’s no risk

that you could draw lines that would wield a large change,” he said.

“The very best you could do is draw lines that produce one more

Democratic seat.”

Nearly half of the Orange County’s 1.5-million voters are

registered as Republicans, nearly 275,000 more than Democrats,

according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters. Huntington Beach,

the largest city in the 46th District, has a similar ratio of

Democrats to Republicans.

Petracca said districts won’t become competitive by simply

redrawing the lines to meet traditional political boundaries. He

suggested that districts be designed to contain an even number of

both Democrats and Republicans. For the 46th District, that might

mean including a portion of the urban areas of Long Beach.

“If you want more competitive districts, you can easily design

them a certain way,” he said. “I think one has to ask themselves ‘Is

that what we’re trying to do, or are we simply trying to make some

more districts competitive for Republicans?’”

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

966-4609 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.