California reformers did too little politicking before putting Prop. Moreover, political give-and-take plays an important role in ensuring a sensible and viable proposal in the first place. It’s through the campaigning of interest groups and politicians that voters learn about proposed reforms and obtain the cues they need to decide how to vote. Yet reformers need to play politics if they’re to have a realistic chance of winning. 77’s most ardent advocate was Governor Schwarzenegger and voted no, much as Republican voters in Ohio rejected the nonpartisan redistricting mechanism designed by "Reform Ohio Now," a group whose name never appeared in press without the obligatory qualifier, “a coalition of unions and Democratic leaning groups.” Ironically, reformers who diagnosed redistricting as infected by politics and set out to cure it found themselves accused of being carriers of the same disease. As a result, people often vote based on simple cues, like who’s pushing for enactment. The devil’s in the details, and the details can be fiendishly difficult for overburdened voters to figure out. “Independence” sounds great in the abstract, but voters are well aware that purportedly neutral reforms may stack the deck against one side. Yet polls show that large majorities of Republicans and Democrats agree that it is a bad idea for the legislature and the governor to make decisions about redistricting. Ohio's Issue 4 similarly lost by a significant margin. California's Proposition 77, which would have vested line-drawing responsibilities in an independent commission composed of three retired judges, was rejected by six out of ten voters. Tuesday’s defeat of redistricting ballot initiatives in California and Ohio was a wake-up call for reformers, who are pressing a nationwide campaign to strip politicians of the power to draw electoral districts. University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog Rothman's Roadmap to the Right of Publicity Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press International Economic Law and Policy Blog The Anti-Torture Memos (arranged by topic) The Anti-Torture Memos: Balkinization Posts on Torture, Interrogation, Detention, War Powers, and OLC Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at Ĭompendium of posts on Hobby Lobby and related cases
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