Arnold Rallies Against Prop. 27 At LA City Hall
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — On a last-minute campaign swing in the Southland,
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged voters on Monday to reject Proposition 27, calling it an attempt by politicians to steal power from residents over the reapportionment of state Senate and Assembly districts.
"We don't want to go back to where we came from," Schwarzenegger said at a rally outside Los Angeles City Hall. "We have fought for many years to take the power of redistricting away from the politicians."
Proposition 27 would eliminate the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which was created through the passage of Proposition 11 in 2008 to draw the boundaries for the Assembly, state Senate and Board of Equalization each decade in the year following the census.
Schwarzenegger was among the backers of Proposition 11. He said politicians "hate" Proposition 11, and "now they want to take us back where we were ... and that's why we say `vote no on Proposition 27."'
"Let California be a shining example how we can change things and fix the political system that is so flawed all over America," Schwarzenegger added, saying the move might inspire other states to make their attempts to prevent gerrymandering.
In their argument on behalf of Proposition 27 in the Official Voter Information Guide, Daniel Lowenstein, a longtime UCLA law professor who was the first chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, and Hank Lacayo, president of the Congress of California Seniors, wrote that passage of the measure "will ensure that those who make the decision are accountable to the voters" and save the state money by abolishing the commission.
They contend that passage of the measure would save millions of dollars every 10 years, helping a state that is financially strapped.
A second measure connected with reapportionment on Tuesday's ballot, Proposition 20, would put reapportionment of the state's congressional districts into the commission's hands.
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