“The constitutional provisions in force now say that redistricting has to be done by the Independent Citizens Commission. It has to involve transparency and public participation. And it can’t be for partisan gerrymandering,” said Mike Columbo, an attorney representing Republicans. “By engaging in the redistricting process already, before asking for voters to grant them the power to do so, the Legislature has exceeded its power under the Constitution. The Legislature cannot break the law and ask for the people later to retroactively give it the power to redistrict.”
Loyola Marymount University law professor Jessica Levinson noted that voters are being asked to weigh in.
“If you think about what this proposal is trying to do, it’s trying to change our state Constitution,” she said. “The lawsuit is essentially arguing that these changes violate the Constitution as it stands. That’s true — and that’s why the voters are being asked to amend the Constitution to change it.”
More broadly, Levinson believes the suit faces a “serious uphill battle,” in part because judges are generally reluctant to get ahead of voters and prevent them from considering a question.
“At this point, if the California Supreme Court granted relief, they would be essentially prohibiting the voters from weighing in on this question,” she said. “So in a sense, we should remember that all pre-election reviews in some way face an uphill battle.”
The lawsuit also alleges more technical legal violations, including that the ballot measure violates a state law prohibiting initiatives from posing questions on more than one subject.
And it rehashes an argument that the state Supreme Court already declined to take up last week: whether the legislation creating Proposition 50 was illegally passed because the bill was not in print for 30 days.
