Right now our state office boundaries are drawn by the people that entire voting districts have elected and are accountable to their very constituents. Proposition 11 wants to take this power out of the hands of duly elected officials and instead hand it over to private citizens who have never held office and would only be accountable to the commission erected for the purpose of this proposition. And unlike the public servants elected to office today, which one may or may not have voted for, the option was there nevertheless. The state’s voters will have no say over who draws the district lines.
Additionally, the creation of this redistricting commission would mandate that two entities do what one entity has been doing; instead of the legislature merely drawing the lines, now a separate bureaucracy unaccountable to the state’s voters would also be performing redistricting. The Attorney General may estimate the costs of this new bureaucracy, but not until it is created and put into action will we see exactly what it might cost the state. These proposed commissioners would be paid $300 per day for their service during a redistricting cycle, which under this constitutional amendment, would happen only every ten years. This is incentive to take one’s time, not to act with urgency. In comparison, the legislature has already created a budget for the legislators who draw up the boundaries now.
