1965 voting law still affects California redistricting

When Congress passed the historic Voting Rights Act 45 years ago, in response to intimidation of black voters in the Deep South, it cast a legal net that ensnared four rural California counties. The Voting Rights Act’s major effect on California, however, has been on the decennial process of redrawing legislative and congressional districts. Any redistricting plan is potentially subject to federal review. Read more here.

Term Limits Initiative Moves to Verification Process

An initiative to limit legislators’ terms in office has moved to the signature verification process taking it a step closer to the November ballot. The measure reduces the total amount of time a person may serve in the state legislature from 14 years to 12 years. It allows a person to serve a total of 12 years either in the Assembly, the Senate, or a combination of both. Applies only to legislators first elected after the measure is passed. Provides that legislators elected before the measure is passed continue to be subject to existing term limits.

Applicants for Redistricting Panel Drop by 90%

The supplemental application deadline for the Citizens Redistricting Commission closed Monday, April 19th and about 90 percent of initial applicants failed to submit completed paperwork. A statistical breakdown of remaining candidates shows the group is proportionately less ethnically diverse than the initial pool of applicants. After extending the deadline for applications by two weeks, the state auditor reported receiving only 2,282 completed applications an hour before Monday’s 5 p.m. deadline. About 2,000 more applicants deemed eligible in round one have submitted materials, but are missing the required letters of recommendation, which had to be postmarked by Monday. Read more about this in the Sacramento Bee.

Assembly Budget Cmte to Discuss CaForward Budget Reform Plan

This Thursday, April 15th, the Assembly Budget Committee will hold the first of four hearings to discuss the California Forward fiscal reform plan (ACA 4 and AB 2591). CaForward has developed new background material on their reform proposal which may be found at this link. CaForward also released poll results about what voters think of the various policies proposed. Reforms showed pretty strong support including 77% favoring two year spending plans and 81% favoring performance based budgeting.

Two proposed ballot measures draw fire from Cal Chamber

Proposed ballot initiatives to allow California’s state budget to be passed by a simple majority of the Legislature and to allow the state Senate and Assembly once again to draw their own district boundaries have drawn opposition from the California Chamber of Commerce. Both initiatives have been cleared to gather voter signatures but have not yet qualified for the ballot. The “Passing the Budget on Time Act” would reduce the current two-thirds vote requirement for passage of a budget and would require lawmakers to forfeit pay if they failed to pass a budget on time. Chamber President Allan Zaremberg said the measure would give the majority party too much power and would eliminate the option of referendum for fees or fee increases that are part of a budget appropriation. The Financial Accountability in Redistricting Act” would eliminate the voter-approved commission approved by voters in 2008 to draw state Senate, Assembly and Board of Equalization districts. “We simply cannot afford to return to a system where the politicians select their voters,” Zaremberg said in a prepared statement. “It is not surprising that politicians are working behind the scenes to try to overturn meaningful political reform.”

The deadline for gathering 694,354 voter signatures is May 10 for the budget-related initiative and July 5 for the redistricting measure.

Dan Walters: California Forward’s budget reform plan falls short – Sacramento Politics – California Politics | Sacramento Bee

Dan Walters: California Forward’s budget reform plan falls short – Sacramento Politics – California Politics | Sacramento Bee

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Select Committee Hears Testimony on California Forward Reforms

Today, the Joint Senate and Assembly Select Committee on Improving State Government heard bipartisan testimony in support of the California Forward Fiscal Reform Principles. We are still waiting on proposals from this committee which were initially due in January but the LA Times provided a good discussion and strong endorsement of these reforms yesterday.