Centerfield

Let's call the two-state solution proposal the "Texas-California Compromise." It has a nice, old-fashioned historical ring to it.

The basic idea of this compromise is that neither the Texas nor California legislatures have much of an incentive to change from their currently gerrymandered Congressional districts, but if a national compromise could be worked out that both states would adopt the same non-partisan redistricting plan, it would be fair to Democrats, who stand to lose in California, and fair to Republicans, who stand to lose in Texas. Individual members of Congress might suffer, but as for the parties themselves, it would be even-steven.

Since both states have Republican governors, if President Bush were to exert some leadership toward forging this compromise, he's stock as a "uniter, not a divider" would rise.

Furthermore, the Texas redistricting is under court challenge, so there may be an incentive to cut a deal.

Sorry to miss the chat. Sounds like you covered some issues that are on my hot-list too. FYI: A fellow centrist, Ernie Prabhakar, myself and a token libertarian have organized a blog association to cover the California Reform situation. Its called Bloginators and its at www.bloginators.com. We're also working on a wiki that will be a guide to the reform issues. We're expecting a busy political summer and fall out here in CA.

I suspect that Arnold will want to stay as far away from the Texas redistricting example, as it brings out the fight in the Democrats. Right now there are seven proposed inititatives related to redistricting in CA filed with the Atty General. The Governor has yet to reveal his plan.

At the moment its still a "Revolt of the Moderates" out here, with both wings sitting still to see how things develop with the public.

Any Centerfield readers who want to join the Bloginators blogroll and be a part of our coordinated effort will be more than welcome.

Since there is wide agreement that election reform should be a priority, any chance that ranked-choice voting could become a priority under that heading? Under our current system, the poles have disproportionate power because they largely determine who wins primaries and under plurality rule, one entering the general election without winning a primary can only be a spoiler. However, under other electoral rules, it would be possible for candidates not winning the primary to enter the general election without affecting how their party's nominee fares against the other party's nominee. This would enable a centrist candidate capitalize on support from the other party.

As an example, suppose John McCain and/or Joe Lieberman were to enter the race with ranked-choice voting. All voters Bush voters would still rank Bush higher than Kerry and vice versa, thus not affecting how Bush does against Kerry. Also, it would be safe to say that nearly all Kerry voters would prefer both McCain and Lieberman to Bush and nearly all Bush voters would prefer both McCain and Lieberman to Kerry. Thus, if only a fraction of Kerry and/or Bush voters prefer McCain and/or Lieberman to their own candidate, McCain or Lieberman would win, thus bringing the outcome to the center.