By JOHN HRABE

Parents and gamblers have a hard time being objective.

“If you ever put that much money on a pony, you kind of like it when it rounds home,” the self-described “proud father” of the Citizens Redistricting Commission, Charles T. Munger Jr., told a redistricting conference last September. Munger financed the Proposition 11 and Proposition 20 initiatives that instituted the commission.

Last month, Munger’s problem child received an undeserved stamp of approval from the California Supreme Court. Or, if you prefer the gambling analogy, the commission’s maps won because all other maps were disqualified as illegitimate contenders. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s decision is rewriting the redistricting history to eliminate all mention of the commission’s flubs. “The Commission-certified Senate districts also are a product of what generally appears to have been an open, transparent and nonpartisan redistricting process as called for by the current provisions of article XXI,” the court wrote in the first draft of California’s redistricting history.

That might be the worst unintended consequence of the court’s decision: an endorsement of a flawed process that desperately needs fixing. The redistricting commission ran over budget, failed to deliver its three draft maps for public input, went dark and reversed its call for public input, relied on outside help to make data publicly available and even had one meeting end in tears. In mid-July 2011, editorial boards were berating the commission. (See the Ventura County Star, the Los Angeles Daily News, the San Diego Union Tribune and the Santa Cruz Sentinel editorials.) Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye was looking into hiring map-drawing consultants.

“The process that the Citizens Redistricting Commission used as a first time effort should not be replicated without significant systemic revision,” Commissioner Mike Ward told me via email. Matt Rexroad, a partner with Meridian Pacific and redistricting expert, offered a few suggestions in a Sacramento Bee opinion piece back in October. Editorial boards and good government groups should set aside their hatred of Republicans and give Rexroad’s reforms a serious look. CalWatchdog has assembled our own list of reforms.

1. Deliver Draft Maps on Schedule as Promised

Problem: The commission promised three draft maps for public input, but failed to deliver anything but the first draft. “Not only did they completely abandon the first draft maps, but they failed to release another complete set of maps until the day prior to the vote,” Rexroad wrote in his second suggestion. The visualizations encouraged the commission to fluctuate back and forth between angry interest groups. When the commission announced it was skipping the second draft maps, Dan Walters described it as taking “the process behind semi-closed doors.” Not so open and transparent, after all.

Solution: Listen to KQED’s John Myers. He first pointed out that the commission confused its legal timeline. “The commission is operating under the belief that the final maps should be available for public inspection for two weeks before being certified on August 15,” he wrote in mid-July. “However, a review of both Proposition 11 and Proposition 20 — the templates for the process — reveals no requirement for that lengthy of a review, other than the public have notice of any meeting at least 14 days in advance.” Two extra weeks could have made the difference between draft maps and visualizations.

2. Adopt an Email Retention Policy to Preserve the Public Record & Ban Private Email Accounts

Problem: It’s never been reported, but Karin McDonald, the mapping consultant for Q2, demanded that commissioners communicate with her about redistricting business via her private email account, not her government email account. Peter Scheer, the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, has written extensively about why government agencies shouldn’t be allowed to conduct government business via private email accounts. McDonald’s motives are unclear because the emails aren’t public. The commission never had an explicit policy forbidding such behavior or mandating the retention of private email records.

Solution: Adopt Peter Scheer’s three-point email retention policy. Read it here.

3. Commission Oversight: Swap the State Auditor for the FPPC

Problem: The State Auditor was the wrong state agency to monitor redistricting commissioners for potential conflicts of interests. The State Auditor has minimal understanding of the intricacies of campaign finance laws and is a poor choice to review the backgrounds of the commissioners and their families. A memo from the State Auditor’s office that was provided to CalWatchDog.com by an agency spokeswoman described their background searches as “routine” and “obviously rather brief.” 

Solution: Require the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency responsible for administering conflict-of-interest documents, to conduct all campaign finance background checks of redistricting commissioners.

4. Campaign Finance Restrictions: Lower the Disclosure Amount to $100

Problem: A campaign contribution is protected political speech because the donation itself is an expression of support for a candidate. It’s not just what the money can buy. Commissioner Gabino Aguirre’s $100 contribution to Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, wasn’t going to make or break the Democrat’s campaign. However, it showed a potential conflict of interest. It was evidence that Aguirre liked and supported Williams for state office. But redistricting commissioners were only required to close donations of $250 or more. 

Solution: Lower the redistricting commissioner disclosure threshold to $100 for campaign or political contributions. The $100 threshold will match state campaign finance law.

5. Campaign Finance Restrictions: Add Business Contributions to the Disclosure Requirements

Problem: Within 18 months of her appointment, Commissioner Jeanne Raya’s business made four campaign contributions to a state political action committee. The business contributions were sizeable, totaling $1,000. Former chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission Dan Schnur said, “The applicant should have listed the contribution: a contribution from a business in which you are the principal is a legitimate indicator of political involvement.” 

Solution: Require commissioners to disclose campaign contributions made on behalf of businesses and organizations in which the applicant serves as a principal officer.

6. Improve Commissioner Disclosure Forms

Problem: State law requires all redistricting commissioners to complete a supplemental application, in which applicants must: “Describe the professional, social, political, volunteer, and community activities in which you have engaged that you believe are relevant to serving as a commissioner, as discussed in Regulation 60847.” This self-disclosure of facts that “you believe are relevant” grants commissioners too much leeway to play innocent later.

Solution: Use the history and public record from this year’s redistricting process to compile a list of relevant organizations. We have an example of the wide range of various community and special interest groups that testified or lobbied the redistricting commission. Compile a list of all organizations and provide a supplemental sheet with specific examples.

7. Sequester Commissioners from Personal Interests, Affiliations and Geographic Bias

Problem: Commissioner Aguirre influenced the commission’s Central Coast maps to favor his political allies at the Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. Even if commissioners can set aside personal biases, the commission’s code of ethics requires commissioners to “disclose actual or perceived conflicts of interest to the Commission.” Aguirre wasn’t alone. Other commissioners allowed personal histories with geographic areas to affect their map-drawing decisions. (See Rexroad’s Number 8.)

Solution: Sequester commissioners from mapping decisions from affiliated groups, personal and professional relationships and relevant geographic regions.

8. Hire a Neutral In-Process Reviewer to “Check the Checker”

Problem: In his speech at the August 15 press conference, Commissioner Ward outlined why an in-process reviewer was necessary: “This commission also failed on the openness and transparency front, when it failed to adopt an in-process review, a system to ‘check the checker’ to validate that information was accurate, forthright and correct. In one instance, I found that mapping consultants had incorrectly represented the public’s comments.” The commission almost went forward with an in-process reviewer but, according to John Eastman and Charles Bell, writing on the Flash Report, had to backpedal when “a public outroar ensued.”

Solution: Hire an in-process reviewer to evaluate the commission’s work and guarantee that the reviewer is independent and unaffiliated with commissioners, commission staff or mapping consultants.

9. Ban Partisan Hiring Decision or Require Bipartisan Hiring Practices 

Problem: The first time Republicans’ feathers got ruffled was when the commission hired Q2 as the lead mapping consultant. According to the Sacramento Bee, “Q2 met bidding requirements only after a last-minute change by the commission, which initially demanded experience in redistricting projects involving about 2 million people but dropped the standard to about 300,000.” Add the Rose Institute’s disqualification, and you’ve got at least the appearance of biased staffing decisions. Ironically, Doug Johnson of the Rose Institute was one of the first people to argue that the commission didn’t violate the Voting Rights Act with the Los Angeles County congressional splits. (See his quote in my City Journal piece.) There’s no question that Johnson and the Rose Institute would have provided neutral advice to the commission. The commission should have hired Rose and Q2 to avoid partisan complaints. 

Solution: Don’t amend any “invitations for bid” at the last minute and always hire both a Republican and a Democratic mapping consultants.

10. Honesty: Disclose that Commissioners Know How Incumbents Are Affected 

Problem: Proposition 11 mandates, “The place of residence of any incumbent or political candidate shall not be considered in the creation of a map.” The worst secret of the redistricting commission is that commissioners knew where incumbents lived. Emails from the public referenced how incumbents were affected by the draft maps. The commission’s press office distributed news roundups about all redistricting stories, which included the media’s horse race and campaign analyses. Of course, Aguirre knew where Williams lived because he contributed to his campaign. 

Solution: Come out with the secret. Disclose on the record at the start of the process where all incumbents live. It’s better than hiding or pretending that the commission is ignorant.

(See the related article from yesterday by John Hrabe, “CA GOP ‘Idiots’ Lose State Senate.”)

By JOHN SEILER

Yesterday the California Citizens Redistricting Commission released its final maps, which already are generating lawsuits to overturn them.

In recent weeks, CalWatchDog.com ran an exclusive series of articles, by John Hrabe, exposing the process. He documented how two of the commissions, instead of being “independent,” were Left-oriented political activists. State Auditor Elaine Howle failed to do her job in vetting the applicants for commissioner.

Apparently relying partly on the CalWatchDog.com series, redistricting expert Tony Quinn wrote:

Dante condemned those who betray a public trust to the hottest place in hell. My candidate for Dante’ inferno this week is State Auditor Elaine Howle, who created the poll of candidates that formed the Citizens Redistricting Commission, now thankfully in its final weeks of existence….

Commissioner Gabino Aguirre managed to obtain a Senate district for his friend, Democratic Assemblyman Das Williams, in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Aguirre made a campaign contribution to Williams after he was in the running for membership on the commission, and then helped craft the new Williams district without disclosing his contribution to anyone. He also helped draw the district intended to end the career of GOP Sen. Tony Strickland. Aguirre hosted a fund raiser in 2008 for the candidate running against Strickland’s wife, the then Ventura Assembly member. These are the kind of people Howle thought were “impartial,” the primary criterion for a commissioner.

What a sham.

The Hrabe articles can be read here:

Part 1 of the Redistricting Series: “Gabino Aguirre’s Secret Political Past.“

Part 2 of the Redistricting Series: “Did Gabino Aguirre Flout Code of Conduct?“

Part 3 of the Redistricting Series: “Chart Shows Aguirre Conflicts of Interest.“

Part 4 of the Redistricting Series: “Jeanne Raya Failed to Reveal Donations.“

A year and a half ago I was the first person to predict that, in 2012 or 2014, redistricting would bring Democrats two-thirds majorities in both houses of the California Legislature. My March 10, 2010 article, “Census Pushing Dems to 2/3 Majority,” still is relevant reading.

Demographic changes were the main reason. Immigrants in recent years have voted about 70 percent Democratic. More immigrants, more Democrats.

Looks like it will be 2012, thanks to a boost from the so-called “independent” California Citizen Redistricting Commission. Reports the Bee:

An independent California commission has set the stage for what could be the largest shake-up of the state’s political system in decades – and potentially give Democrats a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature.

As John Hrabe has reported on CalWatchDog.com in a series or articles, the commission has been seriously compromised by the previously undisclosed, radical political ties and high Democratic partisanship of commissioners Gabino Aguirre and Jeanne Raya.

The Bee:

California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro was laying the groundwork Monday to fight some or all of the maps, saying attorneys were considering either a lawsuit or a referendum that would place the issue before voters.

Asked if the commission’s final product would give Democrats a two-thirds majority in the Legislature, Del Beccaro said simply, “I think it has raised the stakes for that considerably.”

Legal challenges could get the whole mess thrown out, with the maps drawn by the state Supreme Court, as happened in 1991. Meaning the entire process of involving “independent” citizens was a typically Californian waste of time and taxpayer dollars.

They would have been better off turning a state map into a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, throwing the pieces up in the air, then reassemblying them at random.

July 26, 2011

JULY 25, 2011

By JOHN HRABE

A second member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission,  Jeanne Raya, failed to disclose financial contributions made within the past 18 months to a state political campaign committee, according to documents reviewed by CalWatchDog.com. Ten days ago, CalWatchdog.com first reported Commissioner Gabino Aguirre’s failure to disclose three campaign contributions, one of which was made nine days after the State Auditor completed its background investigation.

The Jeanne Raya revelation raises new questions about the California State Auditor’s background investigation of redistricting applicants, which a high-level commission official described as being “invisible” and a memo from the auditor’s office admitted was “brief” and “routine.”

Raya is listed as the “Agency Principal” on the website for John L. Raya Insurance Agency, Inc. and reported ownership of the company on her 2010 Form 700: Statement of Economic Interests. But she failed to disclose to the commission four donations of $250 made by the company since March 2010.

The state’s former campaign finance watchdog believes that the contributions should have been reported, even though they were made through a business account.

“The applicant should have listed the contribution: a contribution from a business in which you are the principal is a legitimate indicator of political involvement,” explained Dan Schnur, former chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency responsible for administering  conflict-of-interest documents. “Someone who contributes to a PAC involves themselves politically just as much as if they had given to a cause.”

Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, believes that the commissioner’s failure to disclose business contributions could have been a “legitimate misunderstanding” by the applicant. He put the onus on the state’s independent review process to fully bring to light any potential conflicts.

“It’s up to the State Auditor’s Office to determine whether it meets up to the letter of the law,” Schnur said. “In fairness to the state auditors, they are very capable people who don’t have a background in campaign finance.”

The California State Auditor’s office refused CalWatchdog.com’s repeated attempts to clarify whether the Auditor’s office intended for applicants to disclose contributions made through business accounts, or whether state auditors checked for political contributions made by applicants’ businesses.

“The staff checked for contributions made by those 120 applicants and family members,” Margarita Fernández, chief of public affairs for the California State Auditor’s Office, wrote in an email response to CalWatchdog.com. “If something came to their attention they could make additional inquiries.”

Taint of Partisanship

John J. Pitney, Jr., the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College, believes that the state auditor had an obligation to “go as far as legally possible” to uncover conflicts of interest.

“The whole idea of the commission was to remove any taint of partisanship or self-dealing, ” he said. “The auditor should have gone as far as legally possible in uncovering any potential conflicts of interest.”

A high-level commission official with intimate knowledge of the State Auditor’s review process described the process as “invisible.” The source, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution by the commission, added that they were “unaware of any check performed beyond reviewing  application materials.”

A memo from the State Auditor’s office that was provided to CalWatchDog.com by an agency spokeswoman confirms the anonymous source’s account of the process. The memo refers to the background searches as  “routine” and  described its own reports as “obviously rather brief.”

The review process by the State Auditor consisted of four key components, all of which relied heavily on information that was self-disclosed by applicants. State auditors started by “performing a routine search for information about every applicant from an established list of public and private sources.” The memo’s appendix lists a “Google search” as the first component of this “routine information search.”

Other steps of the review process included “contacting at least one of the persons who wrote a letter of recommendation concerning each applicant” and “contacting each applicant to try to confirm the accuracy of the information.”

The commission’s supplemental application required applicants to: “List all of the monetary and non-monetary contributions of $250 or more that you have made in any single calendar year during the past 2 years to any professional, social, political, volunteer, and community organizations and causes.”

The State Auditor’s Office established the $250 threshold through regulations, a standard that is lower than state campaign finance laws that require campaign committees to report contributions of $100 or more.

Contributions Are Support

Bradley Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, says that the significance of a $100 political contribution can vary based on individual circumstances, financial status or social obligations.

“But clearly it’s a contribution that indicates support, ” explained Smith, a Clinton appointee to the federal campaign agency who now teaches at Capital University Law School. “Only about 2 percent of Americans make political contributions — by definition, contributors of any amount are usually among the most politically active citizens.”

According to the California Secretary of State’s website, John L. Raya Insurance Agency Inc. has made four $250 contributions to the Insurance Brokers and Agents Candidate PAC since March 2010. Two contributions were made in March 2010, followed by two contributions in March 2011.

Under Schedule 2-A of her conflict-of-interest documents, Raya described herself as the company’s “Corp Secretary” with an ownership interest valued between $10,001-$100,000. State law requires officials to disclose any ownership interests of 10 percent or greater.

The failure to disclose political contributions also appears to violate the Commission’s Code of Conduct, which requires commissioners to “disclose actual or perceived conflicts of interest to the Commission.”

Part 1 of the Redistricting Series: “Gabino Aguirre’s Secret Political Past.“

Part 2 of the Redistricting Series: “Did Gabino Aguirre Flout Code of Conduct?“

Part 3 of the Redistricting Series: “Chart Shows Aguirre Conflicts of Interest.“

Part 4 of the Redistricting Series: “Jeanne Raya Failed to Reveal Donations.“