Opinion: No on Prop. 20, Yes on Prop. 27
By Daniel Lowenstein
Charles Munger Jr., son of Wall Street player and billionaire Charles Munger Sr., donated $1 million in 2008 to the campaign supporting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bizarre legislative redistricting initiative scheme, Proposition 11.
Now, Munger Jr. is the major sponsor and so far only contributor (well, others have given $100,000; Munger Jr. has given $3.7 million as of Aug. 31) to what he calls the Voters First Act for Congress – Proposition 20.
Prop. 20 would give power over redistricting of California’s congressional districts to a panel of 14 randomly selected volunteers – who must, by law, have no experience in government or real-life redistricting. Those volunteers would be chosen by a process that only a tax accountant could love. In fact, anonymous tax accountants play a big role in the selection but what is most puzzling about Munger’s Prop. 20 is that it mandates that all California’s political districts be segregated by income level – each district to include only people of the same income. That’s right, Munger’s initiative orders that all districts be segregated according to income – “similar living standards … similar work opportunities” – these are the exact words he put into Prop. 20.