Real Change We Can All Believe In

While it was overshadowed by the national presidential and congressional elections and the approval in California of the Marriage Amendment, California voters also made history and showed common sense in voting for another initiative.

Proposition 11, which passed with the narrowest of margins (50.8 percent), could mark the most serious challenge to the political class by voters since the foiled term limit movement of the 1990s. It strikes at the core pillar of power: incumbency guaranteed through gerrymandered districts. Californians took away from their legislature the power to draw its own districts--a key element of nearly uninterrupted Democratic control since 1970. The task will now be handled by an eight-member commission chosen much like a jury, whose members cannot come from the political class.

Hopefully, this will become a wave across the country. The practical result would be to make other states such as Maryland, like California, less dominated by Democratic legislative control, while loosening Republican domination in other states such as Texas. In short, legislative races across any state that adopts this reform could become more competitive and citizens would feel they have more influence in how they are governed.