Prop. 11 backers create web video attacking prison guards, Perata

Backers for Proposition 11 have created a web video to spread the message that state prison guards and outgoing state Sen. Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) are waging a shadow campaign against the redistricting reform measure.

The 51-second video specifically criticizes a $577,000 donation the California Correctional Peace Officers Association made last month to a campaign fund controlled by Perata, with the intent that the money would be used to defeat Proposition 11.

If approved, the measure would put redistricting after the 2010 census in the hands of a 14-member panel of politically uninvolved state residents from both major parties and independent parties.

In a press release about the video, Jeanine English of 11-backer AARP said that politicians drawing their own districts, as happened in 2001 after the last census, doesn't serve good government.

"The result of this is a lack of accountability to voters for addressing the real issues facing our state and increased power for insiders and special interests," said English, AARP's state president.

Proposition 11 is supported by the AARP and groups like Common Cause, as well as by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. State Democrats and some ethnic voter groups have opposed the measure.