What are the top concerns of lawmakers? Hint: It's not the economy

As a rule, there are only two things that elected officials really, truly care about: raising money and holding onto their district lines. Mess up on either one and the lawmaker could be out of a job, which means no more car allowances, travel junkets, and speechifying. Not good. Besides, who wants to look for work when the jobless rate is still stuck at 12 percent? All of which might explain the pushback this week to voter initiatives that would reform campaign finance laws and redistricting.

--Campaign financing: You might recall voting on Measure H, a modest effort at banning bidders of large city contracts from giving money to L.A. candidates. Voters overwhelmingly approved Measure H last March. But now it's time to turn the voters' will into law, and the City Council is balking. From the City Maven:

Representatives for the City Attorney's Office and the Ethics Commission disagreed on the scope of the ban. Ethics staff want a more restrictive scope that would include bans on hosting or inviting any one to fundraising events. However, that restriction may not be legally defensible, according to the City Attorney's Office.

And get this from City Councilman Richard Alarcon:

"Nobody in their right mind believes that the vast majority of people actually read (the ballot materials)," Alarcon said. "I think there are very strong legal arguments that less than 10 percent of the people would read 14 pages of a document. So my question is how have the courts felt about the complexity of a ballot measure in terms of the voter's ability to absorb that much information and specificity, and is that subject to challenge."

I must say it's a novel way of trying to block implementation of a ballot measure: Just claim that the voters didn't know what they were doing.

Redistricting: You might also recall that in 2008 and 2010 California voters approved a plan to have a citizens commission redraw the lines for Congressional and state legislative districts. The 14-member panel, which was made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four Decline to State, approved a new map on a 13-1 vote. But almost on cue, state GOP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro called the map "unfair if not unconstitutional," with the next steps being legal and initiative challenges. (Some Latino groups are also unhappy with the changes.) It just so happens that the new, more equitable lines favor the Democrats. From an editorial in the Stockton Record:

The thing that irritates Republicans - and shouldn't give Democrats great comfort, either - is that by keeping politicians from picking their voters, it means voters will get to pick their politicians. And that should result in politicians who are more moderate, since they must appeal to a broader range of voters. When politicians get to say who they'll face, they can appeal to the fringe of their party. That cuts out independents and moderates - where most Californians reside politically - who are more interested in seeing government work than seeing politicians preen.

Never underestimate the power of cars and junkets.