3 ruthless supervisors just gerrymandered SLO County to 10 more years of Republican rule

At the end of a long and bitter day, over pleas for reason and decency, the three conservative members of the Board of Supervisors held true to their Machiavellian promise on Tuesday and blew up San Luis Obispo County’s district map, handing a victory to the Republican Party that could ensure minority rule for at least the next 10 years.

As many had predicted, the GOP’s three standard-bearers unceremoniously dispensed with convention and discarded a map that’s been largely in place for decades, substituting it with a version that radically shifts boundaries to give Republicans a clear electoral advantage.

The net effect is to disenfranchise Democrats, who make up a majority of registered voters countywide.

They did it callously and cavalierly with no regard for opposing opinion.

They did it while presenting straw man arguments, elevating minor concerns into supposed major issues and disregarding true and lasting negative impacts.

No matter how vigorously the three conservative supervisors and their followers deny it, how innocent and wide-eyed they may act, this is gerrymandering, pure and simple.

It is dirty politics, executed by a cabal to whom the ends truly justify the means.

So what happens now?

Liberals have two options: File a lawsuit and/or collect signatures to put the map to the vote of the people.

Time is of the essence, however. Signatures would have to be submitted before the ordinance becomes effective on Jan. 13.

While legal action and referendums should be a last resort, if ever there was a time to turn to those remedies, this is it.

Because this map is an affront to democracy, a bald-faced lie with no legit justification and wholly without need or merit.

The citizens of this county cannot sit quietly and accept another 10 years of minority rule, when this is what minority rule looks like: an engineered campaign of disinformation and false reasoning orchestrated to provide cover for ruthless demagogues who have proven over a recent string of actions that they will go to any lengths to hold onto power.

Last week, we asked just one among Lynn Compton, John Peschong and Debbie Arnold to be a hero, but now we truly know this: There are no heroes among them.

North Coast split into 3 pieces

At the end of the day, one of biggest losers was the North Coast, which was split into three districts, despite hours of pleas from residents of coastal communities like Cambria, Los Osos and Morro Bay.

Several speakers also demanded that supervisors explain their actions, but they remained cagey.

The three conservatives stuck to the main Republican talking point: Cities should be kept intact, and while both maps under consideration are supposedly legal, for that reason the map developed by South County resident Richard Patten is superior.

It’s deeply flawed logic: For one thing, San Luis Obispo — which is currently divided among three districts — is still split in two under the new map. So much for keeping cities whole.

It also ignores the fact that state law requires counties to place priority on keeping communities of interest together, over representing cities with one supervisor.

While there’s plenty of room for argument over what constitutes a community of interest, it’s abundantly clear that the North Coast region fits the definition perfectly — perhaps more so than any other area of the county.

Yet the three conservative board members shamelessly glossed over that, never so much as acknowledging the harm done to a region with only one incorporated city, with more residents who rely on their supervisor’s representation than anywhere else.

And while they recognized that the map will likely lead to a lawsuit, they were unfazed by that — never even asking their attorneys for guidance as to whether it would stand up in court.

Legal arguments entered in the record

The groundwork for a lawsuit has already been laid, and several speakers made a point of putting statements on the record that were obviously intended to bolster their legal arguments.

That came to a head at the end of the meeting, when Supervisor Bruce Gibson, a Democrat who represents the North Coast, attempted to enter several statements into the record — including a district-by-district breakdown of political party registration under the new map.

A privately funded analysis shows Republicans hold the majority in three of the five districts — fueling accusations that the map illegally “packs” Democrats in the remaining two districts.

Conservative supervisors attempted to distance themselves from that debate by claiming they aren’t supposed to even consider such information.

“I thought that was explicitly something we were not supposed to do,” Supervisor Arnold said early in the day, after Supervisor Ortiz-Legg requested a county consultant to supply that information.

“I’m going to vote no on this motion,” added Peschong. “I just don’t believe we are allowed to have this information.”

Yet County Counsel Rita Neal told the board it is permitted to look at the information.

That makes perfect sense.

How can the board determine whether or not a particular political party would have an unfair advantage unless it analyzes the data?

When the issue arose again during the final minutes of discussion, Chairperson Compton said she, too, believes it’s illegal to consider the information, and she attempted to prevent Gibson from entering it into the record by calling for a vote.

When the clerk failed to respond — which would have been difficult to do over the raised voices of Compton and Gibson — Compton took the roll call vote herself.

Undeterred, Gibson read information into the record before he cast his no vote.

Winner-take-all mentality

It was an ugly scene that underscores the deep partisan divide on the Board of Supervisors.

What’s most disappointing is the lack of any effort on the part of the conservative supervisors to even try to reach a compromise.

It was a winner-take-all-battle that not only left the North Coast split, it also shifted District 4 to exclude Oceano and add the more conservative San Luis Obispo County Club area to the district. The net effect is to bolster the Republican edge and make it easier for Compton to win reelection next year, after she claimed victory by a razor-thin margin in 2018.

For the three conservatives to then pretend that they didn’t consider the partisan makeup of the new districts — indeed, to piously maintain as though they aren’t even allowed to consider that information, despite the county’s top attorney telling them it’s permitted — is one of the most disingenuous displays ever witnessed in board chambers.

We all know there is only one reason the SLO County Republican Party put so much effort into supporting this map — it clearly advantages the GOP.

Whether or not it rises to the level of illegality will be up to a judge to decide.

Regardless of a court ruling, there is no question that three far-right supervisors have betrayed the majority of citizens of San Luis Obispo County.

We do not say this lightly, but Supervisors Compton, Peshong and Arnold, you are a disgrace to your office.

When you realized you couldn’t win the game as it’s been fairly set up for decades, you quite literally tore up the board and adopted a new one of your very own.

Now, if nothing is done, San Luis Obispo County may very well spend the next 10 years living under the tyranny of a dishonorable, unprincipled and unscrupulous few — all but ignored by politicians who, time and again, have proven they care more about catering to their conservative base and securing generational power than respecting democratic principles and serving the entirety of this county.