An op-ed by Josh Ishimatsu, Deputy Director of Strategy
I believe in community. Community, for me, is a set of relationships that are supportive, caring, and mutually invested. Building community, for me, is the purpose of life.
So, when I think about democratic structures and processes, I want policies and procedures that help build community and that support existing communities. Applying community building values to drawing Congressional District lines, I want to prioritize keeping communities intact – geographic or jurisdictional communities, communities of identity, and community of interest – and grouping together communities that have common interests. This way communities have stronger, aligned interests/values and can elect and push officials to be more aligned with and better able to represent their communities’ interests.
For these reasons, in more normal times, I would not support the style of district line drawing that Prop 50 represents. In less fraught times, I would care more about community power and representation and less about maximizing the number of elected representatives from any particular political party. In more normal times, I’d much rather have the California Citizens Redistricting Commission drawing district lines because, among other things, they “must respect the boundaries of cities, counties, neighborhoods and communities of Interest, and minimize their division, to the extent possible.”
BUT, to state the painfully obvious, these are not normal times. I believe the overall threat level justifies this small (and temporary) step away from a better process.
These days, everything feels hyperbolic. I am burning out my ability to adequately describe the depth of the threats that we face. Words like existential, terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad, apocalyptic… If we do not do more to stop the Trump administration, millions and millions of people will suffer more and will die sooner than they otherwise would. The most vulnerable people amongst us will lose billions of dollars in services and resources. The environment will degrade, our weather will get more chaotic and dangerous. The whole world will get more chaotic and dangerous. Important scientific and medical discoveries will be delayed by decades. More lives will be disrupted, more rights will be lost, more families will be torn apart, and our democracy will not survive.
We have to do what we can to stop Trump.
Prop 50 is not a magic bullet. It will not be nearly enough, in and of itself. There will be much, much more that we still will have to do.
And as I vote for Prop 50 and still hold my small-d democratic community-centric beliefs, I am comforted that Prop 50 restores the California Citizens Redistricting Commission to redraw district lines in 2030 (as it would on a normal decennial cadence). Keeping my fingers crossed that we still have free and fair elections in 2030. Keeping my fingers crossed (and trying to do my part to ensure) that we still have a functioning democracy by then. In the meantime, vote yes on Prop 50 and keep up whatever other resistance you can muster. Hang in there, we can do this!