Safe districts may roll out with tide

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 Costa Mesa.

The result: a carefully drawn district where Republicans outnumber

Democrats nearly two to one, and where 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 Legislature in 2001 to

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

wants to change the way political lines are drawn in 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 closer 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.

It’s the same story in Newport Beach Rep. Chris Cox’s district,

the 48th, which would probably change less than Rohrabacher’s. All of

Orange County’s districts would be altered because the area’s

population has shifted since 2001, said UC Irvine political scientist

Louis DeSipio, but “it’d be a very unusual circumstance if he [Cox]

didn’t end up with a safe district.”

Not a single congressional incumbent in California has lost in a

general election since state legislators redrew the political

boundaries in 2001. What was once the 45th district became the 46th,

capturing a large chunk of conservative Palos Verdes. The move

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 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 to 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 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. Newport-Mesa’s state assembly and

senate districts aren’t likely to turn Democratic either. In fact,

Newport Beach would probably act as a gravitational center, pulling

whatever district it’s in to the GOP side.

“There’s no question that Newport is a very important piece of the

Assembly, Senate and congressional districts that it’s in because you

have such high propensity voters there, and they’re very

conservative, and they tend to vote Republican,” said state Senator

John Campbell, who represents Newport-Mesa.

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

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,” Petracca 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?’”

Campbell, however, maintains that Schwarzenegger’s goal is to make

the districts more fair -- and state GOP officials aren’t clear on

what the outcome of redistricting would be.

“We’re not doing this because we are sure that Republicans will

gain seats,” he said. “I can tell you there is great division on

that.”

-- Alicia Robinson

contributed to this story