Prop. 11 is drawing some local support

BURBANK — A polarizing proposition on California’s November ballot could precipitously change the state’s political landscape, though experts said the region’s legislative districts will likely stay the same.

If approved, Proposition 11 calls on state leaders to form a politically diverse commission of 14 registered voters charged with reviewing the current makeup of the state’s 120 Assembly and Senate districts and possibly redrawing some of them to better reflect California’s varying ethnic and political makeup.

Proponents of the measure said California has become too entrenched in its political composition; nearly all incumbent legislators are reelected from districts that some of them drew during a 2001 redistricting process, said officials with California Common Cause, a political advocacy organization sponsoring the Yes on 11 initiative.

But opponents, including a panoply of civil rights and Democratic Party groups, maintain that redrawing 80 Assembly and 40 Senate districts could strip minorities of representation.

“It’s unfair for a commission of just 14 members to make decisions for the entire state,” said officials with the No on 11 campaign. “There’s no way that all of California’s 58 counties will be represented — most communities won’t be represented at all.”

Groups concerned that Proposition 11 could dissolve minority representation might be misguided, said Fred Register, a political consultant who has advised a slew of politicians, including Assemblymen Paul Krekorian and Anthony Portantino and state Sen. Jack Scott.

“The general tendency is to respect city boundaries,” he said. “If you see areas chopped off to build ethnic coalitions, that’s more prevalent in partisan redistricting,” such as after the 1990 census when a dramatic shift in the political landscape of Burbank and Glendale transferred control from the Republicans to Democrats in the region.

The 2001 legislative redraw offered no change, while today’s state and federal representatives remain Democratic.

That might be the reason why Democrats oppose the measure, Register said.

But if Proposition 11 does pass, local districts in Burbank and Glendale might not change parties to the extent that other parts of the state, such as districts in the Central Valley, might shift their political allegiance, he said.