California Special Election Watch: Proposition 77 Break With California Governor Schwarzenegger

The ASSociated Press has Redistricting proponents break with governor, form own campaign.

A key supporter of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s redistricting measure announced plans Tuesday to form an independent, nonpartisan campaign supporting Proposition 77 – largely over fears the measure will fail if tied directly to Schwarzenegger’s other Republican-backed ballot initiatives.

Bill Mundell, a Southern California businessman who donated more than $300,000 to help qualify the redistricting measure for the ballot, said his new group would operate separately from the governor’s California Recovery Team in support of the initiative.

Flap supposes Bill Mundell finally GOT it.

The Governor has already won the November California Special Election – With or Without Proposition 77.

The move comes on the same day the California Recovery Team announced that Steve Poizner, a Silicon Valley billionaire and Republican candidate for Insurance Commissioner next year, will head up the Schwarzenegger-backed committee also pushing Proposition 77.

Flap supposes more money is talking here and, of course, MORE POLITICAL AMBITION.

Poizner has more of a chance to win in November 2006 against Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamonte for California Insurance Commissioner than Mundell has over incumbent U. S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.

The proposition, one of three “year of reform” initiatives that Schwarzenegger helped put on the ballot for a special election Nov. 8, would strip lawmakers of their power to draw Congressional and state legislative boundaries, handing the job to a panel of retired judges.

Mundell, a Republican likely to challenge Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2006, said Prop. 77 will only succeed if voters believe it is a nonpartisan effort to restore fairness to the political system.

“We don’t want to be lumped into an overall opposition attack on the special election,” he said. “We feel Prop 77 is the most fundamental of all the reform initiatives, and our biggest fear is that it gets swept into a neat box of partisanship.”

But Pat Caddell, a longtime Democratic consultant who serves on the board of Californians for Fair Redistricting, was more blunt, saying Schwarzenegger’s largely Republican group of advisers had hijacked the measure and undercut its goals.

“I think Schwarzenegger does care about democracy, and there are Democrats who would support a legitimate redistricting initiative that would put the people first,” Caddell said. “But his people have undercut this thing from day one, and the way they are going, they will certainly sink it.”

Proposition 77 has a long way to go. It may be sunk in any case.

The latest Field Poll has it losing by 14 points.

But, the good news for a fair redistricting and apportionment is that another initiative petition could be circulated for the November 2006 ballot..

This split does nothing to increase the measure’s passage and remember whether it wins or not in November the measure will be ultimately decided in the California Supreme Court due to the FLAP over flawed circulated initiative petitions.

Technorati Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Recovery Team, California Special Election, Bear Flag League, Proposition 77

Cross-posted to the Bear Flag League Special Election Page