Victory no longer is sweet for California Republican Party interests that helped strip the Democratic-controlled Legislature of the right to draw political districts.
Republicans say the fledgling 14-member independent commission they helped create through passage of Proposition 11 in 2008 is tilting to the left.
State GOP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro cried foul last week over the hiring of Q2 Data and Research to provide expertise in drawing 177 legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization districts.
"We haven't seen the final results, but they certainly have opened the door to wide-ranging suspicion, and that defeats the purpose of the process," Del Beccaro said of commissioners.
Because the panel consists of ordinary citizens, not redistricting experts, the hiring of a line-drawing consultant is a lightning rod because of potential influence.
Redistricting, a once-a- decade process, strikes at the heart of political power because it can tilt a competitive district left or right.
Creation of the commission was championed by GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger partly as a backlash to lines drawn by legislative leaders in 2001 to protect incumbents.
Republicans contend that Q2 always had an inside track with the commission: Primary owner Karin Mac Donald was a trainer for the panel, which considered awarding her a sole-source contract for the line-drawing job before opting to seek bids.
Q2 met bidding requirements only after a last-minute change by the commission, which initially demanded experience in redistricting projects involving about 2 million people but dropped the standard to about 300,000.
"The process has not been fair and impartial," said political analyst Tony Quinn, a former GOP legislative staffer and a board member of the Rose Institute, the only other bidder.
Dan Claypool, commission executive director, said the change in bidding documents was meant to expand the pool of applicants, not to benefit any firm seeking the $550,000 contract.
"We think they're doing an excellent job – it's tough, but they're doing thorough, thoughtful work," Trudy Schafer, of the League of Women Voters of California, said of the redistricting panel.
Commissioner Jeanne Raya, a Democrat, said that she has not detected bias but that criticism probably is inevitable.
"I'm sure that there's going to somebody who's unhappy with everything we do," Raya said.
Del Beccaro and other Republicans object to Q2 largely because a minority partner is Bruce Cain, a chief adviser to Assembly Democrats in a highly controversial 1981 redistricting. Mac Donald, Q2's primary owner, is registered as an independent voter.
Steve Maviglio, Democratic strategist, dismissed claims of bias as GOP nonsense.
"They somehow thought when they backed Proposition 11 that that meant they were going to have an advantage," Maviglio said. "It hasn't resulted in that – so now they have sour grapes."
Controversy over Cain is a red herring because he has stated in writing that he will not be involved in the project and the commission required that a "firewall" be created to ensure it, Maviglio said.
The Rose Institute could not have won the contract, regardless, Maviglio said. Its bid was disqualified for failure to disclose donors and for failing to clearly identify staff conflicts of interest in bid documents. Three GOP commissioners dissented.
Del Beccaro, the GOP chairman, said there was an obvious solution to ensure impartiality when both bidders had partisan ties – one Democratic, one Republican.
"I don't see how you don't require them to work together," he said.
The commission left open the possibility of hiring an expert to review Q2's maps.
Q2's selection came on the heels of another vote revealing a partisan split. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher was awarded a $150,000 contract to provide legal advice on minority voting rights, with three of five GOP commissioners voting no until the lone competitor – Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Gross & Leoni – withdrew its bid after attracting little support.
Kathay Feng, of California Common Cause, a leader in the Proposition 11 campaign, said that finding redistricting consultants that have never worked for a partisan group is hard because the field is very specialized.
"We're not looking for people with blank slates – otherwise they would have no experience," she said.
Feng said she is satisfied that the selections of Q2 and Gibson Dunn create a "fairly balanced" team. Lead attorneys for Gibson Dunn, for example, consist of Republican Dan Kolkey and Democrat George Brown.
Kolkey is a former appellate court judge and legal affairs secretary for GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, while Brown is co-chairman of the board of directors of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, which champions minority rights.
GOP Commissioner Jodie Filkins Webber said she "highly respects" colleagues but that she was not surprised by perceptions of left-leaning tilt.
"We were chosen to serve all the citizens and to maintain our impartiality," she said. "I feel that each of the Republicans has done that. I just want to charge the other commissioners with a reminder that that's what they're expected to do as well."
Commissioner Connie Galambos Malloy, a decline-to-state voter, said it is important to remember that consultants won't call the shots.
"The commission is the one that's going to be making the decisions," she said.
The panel consists of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independent or minor-party voters. Three votes from each bloc are required to approve maps.
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