Four California state legislators yesterday filed an original writ petition in the Supreme Court — Strickland v. Weber — seeking to prevent the Legislature from enacting bills to allow for the temporary redrawing of the state’s congressional districts.
The bills are Assembly Bill 604, specifying the proposed new districts, and Senate Bill 280, requiring a special election for November 4 of this year. The statewide subject of the SB 280 special election would be the proposed amendment to the California Constitution in Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, which would validate the AB 604 districts.
Votes on the legislative package, called the Election Rigging Response Act, is expected this week in order to meet an election deadline. The legislation is the high-profile effort of Governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats in the state legislature to offset expected Republican-favored redistricting in Texas and perhaps other states.
The petition claims the Legislature is moving too fast. It relies on California Constitution article IV, section 8(a), which says, “no bill other than the budget bill may be heard or acted on by committee or either house until the 31st day after the bill is introduced unless the house dispenses with this requirement by rollcall vote entered in the journal, three fourths of the membership concurring.” AB 604 and SB 280 were both introduced in February concerning other election matters, but were amended yesterday to their present forms through what’s colloquially called a gut-and-amend procedure.
The petition asks the court, “without a hearing,” to require no legislative action on AB 604 and SB 280 until September 18, or to issue an order to show cause, hold a hearing, and decide the matter by Thursday.
The court will likely act very quickly on the petition. It has moved expeditiously on redistricting litigation in the past. (See here, here, and here.) There might be slight holdup, however. According to the court’s website, the petition was filed without a required proof of service on opposing counsel.
One legislator is already trying to play the refs. An Assemblyman “says he doesn’t have hope the high court ‘will give us the light of day’ given the justices removal of an anti-tax initiative from the 2024 ballot [see here]” and, “ ‘We have a corrupt court if they do not intervene.’ ” (Here and here.)
Bob Egelko and Sophia Bollag report in the San Francisco Chronicle: Republicans are suing to block California redistricting plan. Do they have a case?
