Forget the high-road blather. Prop. 50 is about House control

Congressional redistricting is needed to counter a bully president

- GEORGE SKELTON COLUMNIST

DOES TAKING the high road matter when your opponents are willing to play dirty?" an independent citizens' commission member asks.

(KENT NISHIMURA Los Angeles Times)

Regardless of all the campaign jabber, Proposition 50 is not about saving democracy, stopping power grabs or veering off the moral high road. It's about which political party controls Congress.

Or whether Republicans and Democrats share the power.

It's also about exerting some control over unhinged President Trump. That would happen if voters across America next year flip the House of Representatives from Republican to Democrat, ending one-party rule of the federal government. Proposition 50 could help do that.

Does an obedient Republican Congress continue to allow Trump to walk all over it? Or does a new Democrat-led House exercise its constitutional duty to provide checks and balances over the executive branch?

This is what's potentially at stake in California's special election on Nov. 4. And it’s mostly what has motivated political donors to kick in an astronomical $128 million so far for the fight.

But let’s back up.

For many decades, state legislators drew their own districts — gerrymandering them to blatantly help themselves and their party win elections. And with some creative hands from California’s House delegation, Sacramento’s lawmakers also gerrymandered congressional districts.

It was unethical but perfectly legal. The final straw came in 2001 when legislators of both parties conspired to draw districts that protected every incumbent, whether Democrat or Republican.