California Chamber of Commerce President Allan Zaremberg says the current system is upside down: Voters should choose their representatives, not vice versa.

Both are pushing to overhaul California's system of once-a-decade redistricting, in which the state Senate and Assembly draw new district boundaries for legislative, congressional and state Board of Equalization elections.

Their goal is to replace a pact by legislative leaders in 2001, before Schwarzenegger took office, that called for safe seats to be drawn so that Democrats would dominate the Legislature through 2012 and Republicans could breathe easier about retaining control of Congress.

Protecting incumbents has worked flawlessly - much to the dismay of critics, who say it discourages voter participation, reduces the need for lawmakers to be responsive, and tends to result in the election of liberal and conservative extremists.

In November's election, 100 legislative seats and 53 congressional seats were up for grabs. Not one changed parties.

"What kind of democracy is that?" Schwarzenegger asked in his State of the State speech this month.

"The current system is rigged to benefit the interests of those in office - not the interests of those who put them there. And we must reform it."

Others say the issue is not that simple: Incumbents have an edge no matter how lines are drawn. Many communities are dominated by one party. And California has more Democrats than Republicans, so it's no surprise that the GOP has fewer seats.

Gale Kaufman, a Democratic political consultant, noted that both parties supported the deal struck four years ago - it wasn't imposed on Republicans.

"Is redistricting an issue that voters are jumping up and down about?" Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez asked recently. "I don't think so.

"If we're going to say, 'We don't want to pull the wool over the eyes of the voters of California,' I agree with that notion. The question is: How do you solve it?"

Kaufman suggested that the redistricting push amounts to sour grapes by Schwarzenegger and the Republican Party, which targeted nearly a dozen legislative races last year and spent millions of dollars without success.

"The same districts they called competitive in October were not competitive in November," Kaufman said. "It's as simple as that."

Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, a leading a proponent of a mid-decade redistricting, dismisses such criticism.

"It's good government," he said of redrawing lines. "Regardless how people feel politically, this is the right thing to do."

Bids to overhaul the state's redistricting process have sparked controversy not only between Democrats and Republicans, but also within each party, and between state legislators who support immediate change and congressional members who do not.

Schwarzenegger is pushing one redistricting proposal, ACA 3, but two competing bills have surfaced in the Legislature and several other measures are being touted as possible initiatives if a special election is held this year.

Schwarzenegger's favored plan, ACA 3, calls for new boundaries to be created immediately by three retired state or federal judges who would be chosen at random from a pool of applicants identified by the California Judicial Council, the policy-making body for the state's courts.

ACA 3, by McCarthy, requires the three-person panel of judges to seek competitive districts in which the gap between Democrats and Republicans would not exceed seven percentage points.

ACA 3 faces long odds in the Legislature, however, because it requires support by two-thirds of each house for passage and a place on the ballot.

The bill's uphill struggle has spawned talk by some legislators of "sweetening the pot" for a deal between Democrats and Republicans by crafting and placing before voters a companion measure to expand term limits.

Competing with ACA 3 are proposals that vary in specifying who would draw the lines, when and under what criteria.

People's Advocate, which launched the recall drive against Gov. Gray Davis, would make retired judges responsible for redistricting but give legislative leaders a role in their selection. The goal is to have new maps drawn by next year.

Under the People's Advocate plan, the Judicial Council would identify 24 qualified judges. Party leaders in the Assembly and Senate would then name eight to 12 finalists, from which panel members would be selected by lot.

In the People's Advocate plan, unlike ACA 3, voters would approve the final map. About 30 of the Assembly's 80 districts could be drawn to assure competitive races, spokesman Ted Costa said.

The California Chamber of Commerce has submitted a proposed initiative that is identical to that of People's Advocate except that the new system would not be put in place until 2011, when new lines are typically drawn after the federal census.

Other proposals include ACA 8, which calls for boundaries to be set by a five-person panel of retired judges, including one woman and one member of a minority group; and SCA 3, which would place authority in a five-member independent redistricting commission whose members need not be judges.

Jim Gonzalez and Associates, a Sacramento lobbying firm that represents traditionally Democratic causes, has proposed four options for initiatives. They vary in detail, but a primary goal of each is to preserve minority groups' strength and participation in statewide elections. The Gonzalez measures also would exempt congressional seats from the new system until 2011.

Except for SCA 3, every redistricting proposal makes judges rather than lawmakers responsible for setting boundaries.

Judicial intervention is nothing new: When the governor and Legislature could not agree on district lines in the 1970s and 1990s, for example, the California Supreme Court appointed a three-person panel to draw maps.

But Núñez said using judges is not necessarily a panacea. Judges can be political, too, and they were appointed to courts by governors or presidents who were Democrat or Republican.

"You're going to take it from one political body and put it in the hands of another political body," he said. "That doesn't solve the problem."

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata noted that voters consistently have balked at altering the system. Five proposals have been rejected since 1980.

"I don't think that redistricting is going to (make) any material difference," Perata said. "That's not what's wrong with California."

A key issue in the redistricting debate is whether congressional lines should be included if boundaries are redrawn this year: Schwarzenegger says yes, but Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, is among those who vehemently disagree.

The clash potentially could affect fund raising for any proposal.

Doolittle claims that mid-decade redistricting could cost the state's 20-member Republican delegation up to four seats and could discourage the election of conservatives.

Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, disagrees on both counts.

"Republicans would have to run vagrants, felons and miscreants" to lose four congressional seats, Lungren said.

Rob Stutzman, Schwarzenegger's communications director, said the GOP governor is "comfortable with seeking reform no matter who's opposed to it."

"He's a governor of action," Stutzman said. "He doesn't see any reason to wait eight years until districts can be drawn independently of the politicians."