Our View: The shifting winds of political influence

The first draft of the state's new congressional redistricting map lasted less than a week. All it took was for the Register's political reporters to point out that the re-mapping virtually eliminated Rep. Loretta Sanchez's Democratic, heavily Latino district in central Orange County.

The speedy revision of the first draft, certainly the first of many, now shows a district "more evenly balanced between Democrats and Republicans than the current configuration," the Register's Martin Wisckol wrote Tuesday.

This latest configuration will prompt aggressive lobbying by Latino and Vietnamese-American interests, and other interested parties, to further influence the new independent commission redrawing state legislative district boundaries.

Californians passed propositions 11 and 20 in 2008 and 2010 to authorize a 14-member commission to replace partisan politicians' wheeling and dealing in secret. As we have since noted, voters merely moved the politics from political parties to so-called "communities of interest," including ethnic groups. Californians traded one form of special-interest pandering for another.

Clearly, it is better that this occur in public, rather than in smoke-filled back rooms. But voters are kidding themselves if they think the outcome will be devoid of political influences.

Exacerbating the politicization is the Voting Rights Act, which provides "guidelines" to keep an ethnic community in a single district to avoid diluting its influence. "Courts have opined that if an ethnic community can make up 50 percent or more of a district within a reasonable geographic configuration, it should," Mr. Wisckol noted.

The arbitrariness of 50 percent ought to be obvious. Districts with 49 percent Vietnamese-Americans should get less consideration? What about 51 percent if combining Vietnamese-Americans with Korean-Americans and Japanese-Americans? What constitutes enough ethnicity — one Mexican-American parent? A grandparent? A surname?

What should be equally obvious is the partiality by government trying to avoid diluting an ethnic group's influence. Why isn't similar consideration given for non-ethnic groups? Why not for Catholics? Union workers? Newspaper reporters? Each arguably is bound by common interests. Which groups should qualify? Which should not?

It's clear the process combines the worst aspects of affirmative action and blatantly arbitrary political motives. Worse yet, it's managed by unaccountable, unelected commissioners whose results, as we have seen already, blow with the political winds.

A better approach than identity politics would be a system oblivious to political interests. Drawing boundaries to conform to the one-person, one-vote rule is easily accommodated by computerized division of the state according to population. Let lines fall where they may. That would result in true impartiality and equality.