DEVIL IS IN DETAILS OF STATE REDISTRICTING REFORM FOUR TENTATIVELY APPROVED MEASURES VARY WIDELY.

Byline: STEVEN HARMON

MediaNews Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO -- State lawmakers have given tentative approval to four measures to redraw political boundaries. Yet it remains far from certain where these measures will ultimately wind up or just what form redistricting might finally take.

Two Assembly measures, ACA1 and ACA4, which were passed out of a key committee last week, have little in common -- from the selection of those who would be asked to draw political boundaries to the criteria they'd use to make the maps -- other than the desire of Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Minority Leader Mike Villines to keep redistricting reform from flaming out so early in the legislative session.

A week earlier, the Senate approved two equally disparate redistricting measures. SCA9 would allow retired judges to pick an independent committee to draw maps for state legislators, the Board of Equalization and Congress, while SCA4 blends redistricting, except for congressional seats, with an array of other government reforms.

The competing measures not only paint a muddled picture, observers said, but reflect just how conflicted lawmakers are about handing over the power to draw their own districts.

"I don't think they're truly committed to redistricting reform," said Melissa Michelson, political science professor at California State University, East Bay, in Hayward. "They're going along with it because they have to, to get a term-limits extension."

Placing redistricting reform on the ballot, strategists say, is crucial to persuading voters to approve a term-limits measure that would allow some lawmakers to stay in office longer.

The theory is that voters might grant legislators more time in office if the lawmakers are willing to give up redistricting powers, which have long been used to protect incumbents.

Nonetheless, critics say that some of what's contained in the proposals shows that legislators might not be entirely ready to give up the map- drawing power.

For instance, Nunez's redistricting measure, ACA1, contains what his critics call a "poison pill" -- a provision that ultimately could lead to its defeat at the polls.

That "pill" was including congressional boundaries, which would likely draw a multimillion-dollar opposition campaign from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who fears that wresting map-drawing powers from the hands of a Democratic-controlled state Legislature could threaten Democrats' control of Congress.

Nunez included congressional boundaries to appease Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vowed not to support any effort to extend term limits unless the Legislature approved redistricting reform that included congressional boundaries.

SCA9, sponsored by Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, also requires congressional boundaries to be drawn by an independent commission.

Placing the Little Hoover Commission in control of redistricting, as Nunez's measure does, has also drawn fire. Republicans and government-reform advocates say the politically appointed commission would be overly influenced by legislators, who pick four of its nine members.

The governor picks the five of the nine, another prickly point for Republicans, who fear Democrats would exercise complete control over the commission if they got the governorship back in 2010.

"I don't think it's fair," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies. "It's got to be bipartisan appointments at minimum."

Ultimately, Democrats will need Republican support to get the two-thirds required to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. Villines, a Fresno Republican, said the Little Hoover Commission must be jettisoned to get GOP support.

sharmon(at)cctimes.com

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