Redistricting Reform Could Save California from Itself

As the stalemate and eventual "smoke and mirrors" 2008-2009 state budget demonstrates, the budget process in California has become largely dysfunctional. While there are a lot of causes of this dysfunction ranging from constitutional hurdles to the nature of the state's finances, partisan polarization in the legislature interacts with many of these to produce pronounced gridlock. Redistricting reform that would produce more competitive districts would ameliorate some of this polarization or possibly even provide an occasional supermajority. While districts are not necessarily the primary cause of California's budget woes, redistricting provides one of the only feasible solutions.