Schwarzenegger Dispels Rumors About Senate Run
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Sunday said thanks, but no thanks, to rumors that he will run for the United States Senate from his adopted homeland.
Writing on Facebook, the movie-star-turned-politician said he would instead concentrate on bringing political reform in the form of an end to gerrymandering.
The practice of drawing political boundaries for federal and state legislatures, called gerrymandering, "has completely broken our political system," the former Republican governor wrote Sunday.
Political scientists have blamed gerrymandering for creating safe seats for politicians from both major parties, thus empowering the fringe conservatives and liberals from taking over the Republican and Democrat parties.
Voters in overwhelmingly Democratic California abolished gerrymandering by approving initiatives creating a non-partisan panel to draw congressional and state legislative districts using logical geographical boundaries.
The U.S. Supreme Court last April unanimously held that Arizona's non- partisan redistricting commission is constitutional and does not violate the one person-one vote concept, inferred by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
"My mission right now is to bring sanity through Washington through redistricting reform like we passed here in California," Schwarzenegger wrote Sunday on Facebook.
"Gerrymandering has completely broken our political system, and I believe my best platform to help repair it is from the outside, by campaigning for independent redistricting commissions."
Schwarzenegger thanked people for "kind messages and all of the support" in the nascent movement to nudge him to run for the U.S. Senate.
The 2018 election will include the Senate seat now held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, at 83 the oldest member of the Senate. If she runs for re-election, it would be her fifth six-year term.
Any Republican running for U.S. Senate will face either Feinstein or a formidable array of Democrats anxious to replace her, and a primary system that awards the two general election spots to the top two primary finishers.
Last year, that meant two Democrats faced off to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer.
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