...Arnold Schwarzenegger agrees. Unlike the Supreme Court, he intends to do something about it. The charismatic California governor has launched a full-scale attack on redistricting abuse, demanding that the power to draw election maps be taken from the Legislature and turned over to a committee of retired judges. Legislators hate the idea, but they know Schwarzenegger can go over their heads. People's Advocate, the organization that spearheaded the effort to recall former Governor Gray Davis in 2003, has already begun collecting the 600,000 names on petitions it would take to bypass the Legislature and submit a redistricting initiative directly to the voters.

Democrats were quick to blast Schwarzenegger. But Republicans are no happier -- 16 of California's 20 Republican congressmen oppose his plan. The beauty of redistricting reform is that there is nothing partisan about it. It doesn't empower R's at the expense of D's, or vice versa. It empowers voters at the expense of politicians.

Political trends often start in California, but this time the Golden State is joining a crusade already in progress. Several states, including Iowa, Idaho, Arizona, and Alaska, have done away with partisan gerrymandering. Campaigns to follow suit are heating up in half a dozen others.

Including Massachusetts. More than 190 years after the term ''gerrymander" was coined here in 1812, the watchdog group Common Cause is proposing an amendment to the state constitution that would do away with gerrymandering forever. The measure would make redistricting the job of an independent commission, which would not be allowed to take party registration or voting history into account. When Common Cause tested its proposal as a nonbinding ballot question in 15 state representative districts last fall, it passed handily in each one.

''Massachusetts elections are among the most uncompetitive anywhere," says Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts. ''Redistricting has always taken place behind closed doors, with zero public input." As a result, freewheeling elections are as rare in Massachusetts as they are in California. No member of the Bay State's congressional delegation has been defeated since 1996, for example. No member of the state Senate has lost a race since 1994...