Governator Schwarzenegger Completes Petition Drive on Legislative Redistricting Measure

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the completion today of a petition drive to change how legislative districts are drawn — the second of three measures he wants to put before voters in a proposed special election this fall.

The San Francisco Chronicle has the story here:

Supporters turned in about 215,000 signatures to county officials in Los Angeles, the first of nearly 1 million they expect to deliver to election offices statewide by Monday. The measure requires 600,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

In a public appearance, Schwarzenegger pressed for the redistricting measure that would put retired judges in charge of drawing boundaries instead of the Legislature.

“The politicians have divided neighborhoods, they’ve divided cities, towns and people — and that is what we want to eliminate,” he said. “The district lines were drawn to favor the incumbents rather than to favor the voters.”

Although the Legislature’s Democratic majority largely views the measure as targeting it, Schwarzenegger is selling the proposal as a nonpartisan issue.

The Governor submitted signatures for his teacher tenure reform proposal yesterday.

Without a fair and impartial redistricting the legislative, and Congressional district races will never be competitive and reflective of California voter sentiment.

Look for the Democrats in the California Legislature and the Republicans in Congress to attempt a compromise to save their current gerrymander.