With most of the state beginning to focus on their favorite candidate for the Primary Election coming next June, nobody is paying any attention to the selection of fourteen regular citizens who will become “Rock Stars” come February 2010.

Next year fourteen citizens will be known as the “Citizens Redistricting Commission” for California’s future; regular people who will be selected from thousands of applicants between December 15, 2009 and February 15, 2010 put in charge of coloring the Golden State’s future.

In November of 2008, the Governor’s ‘re-districting initiative’, Proposition 11, passed with a wide majority. Starting December 15th a two-month application process will determine the “14 Rock Stars” who will be given the crayons to draw the new lines for the state’s statewide legislative and congressional districts.

These fourteen commissioners will hold the state’s political and electorate future in their hands.

In terms of influence, these commissioners will rival any in the state’s history. Prop 11′s goal is for everyday voters, not judges, politicians, political consultants, or the influence of any public employee unions to determine the lines of California’s new district in 2011.

The question that remains; who will these individuals be, and how will the application process determine a sincere pool from which to select the commissioners?

State Auditor Elaine Howle, whose office is overseeing the applications, said she is optimistic that there will be many qualified candidates. You can read the application details on the Auditor’s website.

That question that is the most concerning of this process; can we produce a pool of applicants, which eventually lead to a commission of 14 regular, private citizens, who can – without bias, political influence or any self-determined ideology - produce a new grid for California’s elections?

The first level of application is to refuse any association of interest, involvement or personal ability to taint the process. The State’s Audit Department has combined the initiative’s pre-determined content (what the voters voted for), and added protocol to the process of application, and qualification for application.

The Audit Department released a few rules for those who might be interested in applying. The first announcement was removing any possible ‘conflict of interest’ from the applicant pool:

More specifically, subparagraph (A) provides of the conflict rules page state’s that an individual has a disqualifying conflict of interest if that individual or a member of his or her immediate family has done any of the following:

• Been appointed to, been elected to, or been a candidate for federal or state office.
• Served as an officer, employee, or paid consultant of a political party or of the campaign committee of a candidate for elective federal or state office.
• Served as an elected or appointed member of a political party central committee.
• Been a registered federal, state, or local lobbyist.
• Served as paid congressional, legislative, or Board of Equalization staff.
• Contributed two thousand dollars ($2,000) or more to any congressional, state, or local candidate for elective public office in any year.
• And no ‘blood relatives’ for those in legislature, the governor’s office (executive), congressional or any federal office.

It is obvious that these fourteen commissioners will be novices to the process of politics.

This fact may be an encouragement, or it may be a detriment to the future of California’s body of legislators. The jury, or the application process, is still out a few months.

If an applicant gets past the qualification process, they then reach the next hurdle, diversity.

The auditor’s rulebook states that the only way applicants can be chosen from the pool to ensure the commission reflects California’s diversity is if that pool is a diverse pool. So the panel has some duty, in addition to selecting applicants for the pool based on their qualifications, to select applicants with an eye toward assembling a pool whose membership is diverse.

Regarding the kind of diversity the panel should seek to achieve, section 8252, subdivision (g) of the application process rules list certain characteristics of diversity that must be included, but suggests that diversity may include other characteristics as well.

Under that subdivision, the diversity the panel must include racial, ethnic, geographic, and gender diversity. Of course diversity may include any of a host of other characteristics, including, age, income level, education level, sexual orientation, religion, disabilities, and so on.

For the panel to select commission members based on a particular characteristic of diversity, the application process for selecting the commission members will have to inquire of applicants about these characteristics, and some prospective applicants may be dissuaded from applying to serve on the commission if they consider such an inquiry to be an invasion of privacy.

For example, some prospective applicants may be opposed to responding to a public inquiry about their sexual orientation, their current employment or state their income publicly.

On-the-other-hand they may enjoy the opportunity to sit on a commission that draws lines that will eventually result in new legislative districts that will elect legislators who craft, write and pass laws for those of particular gender interests.

Better stated, is there a constituency within the populous’ diversity sample, that has economical means to seat more than one member on the Citizens Redistricting Commission?

Could we learn of secret donations to individuals who have the time and the means to represent certain people groups with political interests within California’s future legislative bodies?

All one would have to do is gain favor with a few of the 14 commissioners to sway a few line locations in certain parts of the state. Would it be easier to spend another $10 million on a future Prop 8, or easier to send $2 million on a couple of private citizens with crayons in their hands?  

Then auditor’s application process focuses on economic status.

Since these are not paid positions, the subject matter of ‘time commitment’ and the economical means to ‘self-funders during’ the process, with only a per-diem of $300 weekly, brings another questions to the service.

Will wealthy population groups pay for commissioner’s service? A few promises here, or there, from groups who have the ability to make those promises come true, could change the color of a district or two.

In the end, the qualified applicants will be, somewhat, politically ignorant, probably retired, an educator with time on their hands or currently unemployed. The fear is that the lot will include a majority social engineers who look to make a new future for California, her category of marriage and status of corporate interests.

One thing is certain, anyone who has been activity involved in politics over the past fews year is on the outside looking in on this process. Those who have no great party affiliation, have voted but not given any real time, effort or money to political causes, and those who have the ability to either self-fund with time on their hands, will be holding the crayons that redraw California’s new districts for 2011.