I've been pretty supportive of Governor Arnold since he took office, and I think he's accomplished a lot of good for the state I love. The special election he's called for this November is his most daring challenge to California's political establishment yet, and his three ballot measures (plus two others) could potentially upset the status quo that's held California in stasis for decades. First:
The most economically important is Measure 1131, which would put additional controls on state spending. Mr. Davis drove spending up by one-third in his five years in office; Mr. Schwarzenegger's proposition would limit spending increases to average revenue growth over the previous three years and give the governor the power to reduce spending if revenue decreases and the legislature fails to act to correct the deficit.
The state has to stop spending more than we take in, and a Tabor-style spending cap is one of the best ways to do it. Why? Because a spending cap eliminates the incentive to raise taxes -- even if taxes are raised, the money taken in over the spending cap has to be returned to taxpayers.
A second proposition seeks to improve the quality of California public school teachers' skills by requiring five instead of three years of work before they gain tenure and making two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations sufficient reason to fire a teacher.
Some teachers are great, but some teachers are terrible. One of the biggest flaws of our bureaucratic public education system is that there's no way to reward the former and eliminate the latter.
Finally comes the most politically explosive Schwarzenegger proposal--mandating the drawing of legislative district lines by retired judges. There is no question that when legislators of both parties work together to draw district lines there is political collusion to safeguard their own seats. As California economist Art Laffer (a supporter of the proposition) pointed out, among the 80 state Assembly seats, 20 Senate seats and 53 U.S. House seats up for election in 2004, "not one seat of the 153 changed party affiliation." The Declaration of Purpose of the proposition has it right: "Partisan gerrymandering, uncompetitive districts, [and] ideological polarization" govern the redistricting process.
Emphasis mine. Both parties are guilty of gerrymandering, and it's a despicable practice for anyone who values democracy to engage in. Some reform is needed, and this plan sounds plausible at least.
The final two are:
Two other emotional proposals have already qualified for the November vote--parental notification and a two-day wait for unmarried girls 17 and under to receive an abortion, and requiring a public employee's written consent before a union can spend his dues money for political contributions.Gov. Schwarzenegger has not endorsed the abortion measure, but it will bring a great many people to the polls on Nov. 8. An April Fox News poll showed 78% support for parental notification--and no wonder. Under existing California law 14- to 17-year-olds need parental permission to use tanning machines or to get their ears pierced. How does one then argue that a young girl's abortion requires no parental notification?
Because abortion is the unifying issue for leftists, the third-rail of American liberalism. Of course, an outright ban on the vast majority of abortions would be the best option, but the Supreme Court has already decided that the populace is not qualified to make that decision through the democratic process. I'm so glad we have elite lawyers to tell us what to do.
Meanwhile, it's funny how the left is against so many "choices" except abortion.
Union political use of public employees' mandatory dues is a real issue too--why should anyone required to join a union have to financially support candidates or policies that he disagrees with? If Enron or Tyco had used employee money to support their policy proposals and political candidates, the liberal left would--quite properly--have been apoplectic. But the left supports unfettered union use of state employees dues for political purposes. Indeed, the California teachers union has already slapped an annual $60 dues assessment (for up to three years) on its members to raise the $50 million it needs to fight Mr. Schwarzenegger's November ballot proposals.
Most unions exist not to help their members, but to help themselves and their leaders. They don't want to lose power, so they'll fight giving members the choice to refuse to contribute to political causes.
These propositions aren't perfect, but they're several steps in the right direction; I intend to support all five. I love California, and I don't want it to go down the drain. Now, if only we could do something to stop illegal immigration....
I've often wondered why they can't stop gerrymandering with an algorithm. The whole business of drawing district lines is already heavily computerized. How hard could it be to write a program that draws lines that satisfy all appropriate non-partisan criteria?
Ben, I think it could be easily done by requiring that the ratio of the perimeter to the area of the district not exceed a certain amount (to be determined). An alternative way might be to measure the fractal dimension of the perimeter and give it a maximum value.
As a California expat, I'm keeping an eye on Schwarzenegger's reforms. If California's government goes far enough down the path toward sanity, we might consider moving back someday.
Drawing lines to satisfy some set of constraints could actually be very hard. Even discovering if a solution exists for a given set of constraints would be NT-Hard, I believe. If the constraints were loose enough, however, it wouldn't be that hard in practicality. However, if you think about it, much of what our government does could be left to computers.
I was thinking more along the lines of passing a law saying "The ratio of the perimeter of a district to its enclosed area cannot exceed X" where X is some value to be determined. Then you wouldn't have to have computer-generated district boundaries; the legislators could draw the boundaries, and then a 7th grader with a calculator could check to see if their boundaries all met the criterion. I think legislators would find that more politically acceptable than entirely computer-generated districting. Also, computer-generated districting cannot take into account unmeasurable factors such as which communities "fit" better together socially.