Court rejects GOP bid to put redrawn boundaries on hold

San Francisco Chronicle (CA) - Saturday, January 28, 2012
Author: Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

State Senate district lines drawn by a citizens' commission must be used in this year's elections, the California Supreme Court ruled Friday in rejecting a Republican group's request to put the new boundaries on hold until voters can decide whether to repeal them in November.

Republican leaders denounced the unanimous ruling, a setback for the party's hopes to keep its power to block tax increases, which require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Legislature. 

The decision "severely undermined the referendum process" by allowing use of the disputed districts before voters can determine their fate, state Republican Chairman Tom Del Becarro said in a statement. 

But Peter Yao, chairman of the Citizens Redistricting Commission - created by the state's voters in 2008 - called the ruling "a great victory for the people of California" and said the challenge that the court rejected was "based on partisan self-interest." 

The court, which has a 6-1 majority of Republican appointees, said politics played no part in its decision. 

When a redistricting map drawn by a "nonpartisan entity" is challenged by a referendum sponsored by a political party, said Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the court should not be viewed as "improperly intruding into the political thicket" if it decides to use the commission's districts in the next election. 

Commission createdThe once-per-decade task of redrawing district lines to account for population shifts was previously handled by the Legislature, which historically had used its power to protect incumbents. 

The 2008 initiative established the commission to redraw state Assembly, Senate and congressional districts and barred it from considering partisan politics as a criterion. It instead directed the commission to follow a series of guidelines, including city and county boundaries and the preservation, where possible, of "communities of interest." 

Its Senate maps, adopted by the commission on a bipartisan vote in August, could allow Democrats to gain a two-thirds Senate majority by picking up two seats in the upper house, where 20 of the 40 seats are at stake this year. 

Republicans have submitted 710,000 signatures for a November referendum on the Senate districts, with 504,000 valid signatures needed to qualify. They did not challenge the commission's congressional or state Assembly districts. 

Election officials won't finish tallying the signatures until Feb. 24, but the referendum's sponsors say they're confident of making the ballot and asked the court to ban use of the new boundaries in the June primary, even if it means using old districts with unequal populations. 

The court was unpersuaded. 

Cantil-Sakauye, author of the opinion, noted that the court had rejected a previous Republican challenge to the legality of the new districts and found that they met all requirements set by law, including the constitutional one-person, one-vote standard, protection of minority voting rights and preservation of "communities of interest." 

Public hearingsThe commission's plan, adopted after eight months of public hearings around the state, is the product of "what generally appears to have been an open, transparent and nonpartisan redistricting process," said Cantil-Sakauye, an appointee of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

In Friday's case, Republicans argued that state law prohibits the use of the new boundaries if a referendum is likely to qualify for the ballot. But even if the proposed ballot measure is certified for November, the chief justice said, the court must select district boundaries for 2012 that meet all legal criteria, and the commission's maps are the only available alternative that passes that test. 

Retaining current boundaries that were based on the 2000 census, one option proposed by the Republicans, would lead to population disparities among districts of more than 30 percent in some cases, Cantil-Sakauye said. She said other Republican alternatives could result in violations of the federal Voting Rights Act and delay elections for four years for some voters. 

If the referendum qualifies for the ballot and is approved by the voters, the court will appoint experts to draft new Senate districts for 2014. 

The ruling in Vandermost vs. Bowen, S198387, can be viewed at links.sfgate.com/ZLGQ.

Email Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.