Citizens’ redistricting scores a win

Editorial

It was amusing — in a good way — to see California’s political leaders gushing about their relief that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of citizens, through an initiative, to set up a nonpartisan system for drawing congressional districts.

The case was from Arizona, whose politicians argued that the Constitution assigned the power to draw district lines directly to legislatures — which, in a natural exercise of self-preservation, typically have gerrymandered boundaries to keep themselves in power.

California has a nonpartisan redistricting system set up by a ballot proposition that was expected to fall if Arizona’s bit the dust. According to reports a few weeks ago, politicians in Sacramento already were sketching out new lines for next year’s Congressional races in hopes of bolstering party-line Democrats against independent challengers, like the rerun insurgency of Ro Khanna against incumbent Mike Honda in the 17th Congressional District.

Happily, the high court came down on the side of citizen democracy, finding that the Constitution’s intent was to have representatives of the people draw the lines, whether elected lawmakers or an alternate system that voters chose. And even if existing lawmakers were hoping things might go the other way, it’s great to see them applauding the victory for democracy with a lowercase “d.” Game over.

The ruling also means California’s voter-approved top-two primary system should be safe from legal challenge, so that members of the same party can be in a runoff election. This is how Khanna and Honda, both Democrats, ended up in a close race this past fall.

Pushed by California Forward and other political reform movements, the citizens’ redistricting and the top-two primary systems should allow more moderates, like Khanna, to make runoffs instead of having the polar-extreme Democrat facing the polar-extreme Republican in every partisan race. It’s the way local elections for city councils and county supervisors work, and over time it should help to make compromise more of a possibility, or even a necessity — like what most consider to be the good old days of lawmaking.

On another ruling on the side of democracy, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Kansas and Arizona to require people using a federal voter registration form to provide proof of citizenship. States can’t force the federal government to change its forms to be more restrictive.

Conservative states have been erecting barriers to voting, such as offering less time and fewer places to vote and making it more difficult to register.

California, fortunately, is moving in the opposite direction.

A bill now in the Senate would automatically register any qualified citizen who comes to a DMV office for a driver’s license or renewal.

Making it easier to vote and giving voters better choices should help engage more citizens in our democracy. And whether it’s in a red or blue state, that is a good thing.