Most supporters of election reform in California have redistricting at the top of the list of things that need to be changed. The current system in California is nothing more than an incumbent protection program with our legislators sitting down every 10 years and securing their own seats.

In the last two statewide elections, not one of the 153 state assembly, state senate or United States Congressional seats changed parties, this at a time when our satisfaction with our elected officials is close to all-time low.

51 of the 53 House races held in 2004 were won by margins exceeding 20%.

Until the general election matters, we will continue to send people to Sacramento who represent their party, not their constituents.

Texas has been having redistricting battles for the past few years, to the point where Democratic members of the legislature ran and hid in Oklahoma a couple of years ago so they couldn’t be forced to vote. They did however challenge the Republicans (Tom DeLay) 2003 gerrymandering and the case wound up in the Supreme Court.

Wednesday, the Supreme Court (made up of the only nine people in the country with more job security than state legislators in gerrymandered districts) determined that, with minor and specific exceptions, redistricting may happen more frequently than every 10 years and that the party in power in the legislature can basically create whatever districts they want, whenever they want – the people be damned.

This does not bode well for California and those of us working on redistricting need to pay attention to this case and not duplicate the mistakes made in Texas.