The LA Clippers don't win much. But to call one genre of ballot measures -- reapportionment initiatives -- the Clippers of initiatives is an insult... to the Clippers.

Or to put it another way. Such measures lose. Always. Dozens of such initiatives have been filed in California in the past 15 years. How many have been approved by voteres? Zero.

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former state Controller Steve Westly are trying again. The two teamed up in 2004 to convince voters to pass Propositions 57 and 58, companion measures to refinance the state's debt and to establish a balanced budget requirement in the state constitution. The measures won, but the initiatives have failed to live up to Schwarzenegger's promise that they would fix the state budget "once and for all." Now they want to prevent a repeat of the "bipartisan gerrymander" the Golden State saw when new district lines were drawn seven years ago.

That gerrymander ended competition between the parties.Instead, the state was carved up into seats that were safe for Democrats and Republicans. Swing districts were eliminated. Democrats liked it because it locked in their majorities; Republicans embraced it because it prevented further losses. In 2004, not a single one of the 153 legislative and congressional seats changed hands from one party to another.

Failed initiatives have included all kinds of redistricting schemes. Judges, retired judges, elected officials, citizens' commissions, even members of something called the Little Hoover Commission (an only-in-California reform commission that supposedly reforms things) have been offered up as the right people to draft the lines. Schwarzenegger himself backed Prop 77 (retired judges would have been the line drawers) in 2005; its defeat was part of his failed special election. In all these defeats, voters have been uninterested in the reform, concerned that the initiative was being put forward for partisan purposes or both.

This time, Schwarzenegger and Westly have the AARP, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters behind them. All of these groups have backed previous efforts. But this measure is less ambitious than previous efforts. It would cover only state legislative districts and exclude Congressional seats, which have become virtually lifetime appointments in the state. And there is no sign the political dynamics have changed. The budget crisis, not redistricting, is likely to dominate the news. The donors are so far mostly Republican, and Democrats have already begun to denounce it.

At a press conference Tuesday, the governor allowed: "We have tried it before, it hasn't worked." But he's trying again. Who says the governor doesn't like losers?