Will redistricting solve budget standoff? Views differ, new journal finds
| 05 February 2009
BERKELEY — California faces a $42 billion budget shortfall, but could part of the solution to the state’s chronic fiscal problems be a political reform? In the inaugural issue of the California Journal of Politics and Policy, a new electronic journal produced by Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, Matt Jarvis of CSU-Fullerton argues that partisan polarization in the legislature helps to produce gridlock. Redistricting reform might help reduce polarization, Jarvis believes, and thus make it easier to address budget woes.
But Justin Buchler of Case Western Reserve University takes a different view, arguing that redistricting reform will have a minimal effect on polarization. His solution is to eliminate the two-thirds voting requirement for passing a budget in the legislature.
Elsewhere in the inaugural issue, Tony Quinn of the California Target Book examines the origins of the two-thirds rule, Thad Kousser of UC San Diego analyzes how a geopolitical shift in the state united Democrats and divided Republicans, and Bruce Cain of the UC Washington Center reviews a new book on “residential sorting,” or the tendency of people to live near those who agree with them.
The California Journal of Politics and Policy is published jointly by the Institute of Governmental Studies and BE Press, and can be accessed by anyone at www.bepress.com/cjpp. Readers who want to receive email updates on new articles can sign up at the journal’s home page.