Fifteen years ago, I helped make the case for what became California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission . It was a first-of-its-kind body of 14 ordinary Californians, neither politicians nor their appointees. It was balanced with equal Democratic and Republican representation, charged with drawing fair districts after the 2010 Census. The argument was simple, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put it: “Gerrymandering has created an absurd reality, where politicians now pick their voters instead of the voters picking their politicians.” In this effort I often partnered with a type of Democrat one rarely sees these days: the reform-minded Democrat. For over a decade, the commission worked. It wasn’t perfect. No democratic institution is. But it represented something important, a genuine attempt to remove the most self-interested actors from a process that shapes the fairness of every election that follows. Gov. Gavin Newsom championed Prop 50.…