SACRAMENTO — The California Supreme Court handed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a major victory Friday, putting back on the Nov. 8 ballot his initiative to change how legislative district lines are drawn.
The brief order, issued by a 4-2 vote, ends a monthlong legal battle between supporters of the initiative, Proposition 77, and Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer. The attorney general had won two rounds in lower courts. Those judges accepted his argument that the measure should not be voted on in November because its backers had violated election law in the way they got the measure on the ballot.
The Supreme Court overturned those lower-court decisions. But it left open the possibility that the election-law violations could still sink the ballot measure. If voters approve the measure, the justices said, they might then review the legal issues to determine if it is valid.
"The court hasn't ruled on the merits," said Lance Olson, a Sacramento attorney representing opponents of Proposition 77, "so we don't know if it's a valid initiative or not."
The order preserves a key element of Schwarzenegger's agenda for the November special election. Proposition 77 is one of three initiatives he has endorsed of the eight that are scheduled to appear on the ballot.
In a statement released after the court's announcement, Schwarzenegger said he was "pleased" by the decision. "The people of California will have an opportunity to vote on Proposition 77 this November," he said.
The measure is designed to strip politics from the once-a-decade job of redrawing congressional, legislative and Board of Equalization districts to ensure that they contain roughly equal numbers of people.
Currently, those district lines are drawn by legislators. Whichever party dominates the Legislature tends to draw lines to its advantage, seeking to have voters who favor them be the majority in as many districts as possible, even if it means creating contorted, oddly shaped districts.
In the last redistricting, in 2001, Republican and Democratic lawmakers struck a gentlemen's agreement to draw new districts to protect the existing balance of power. Many political experts called those districts a major reason not one of 153 seats in the Legislature or the state's congressional delegation changed party hands in the last general election.
In endorsing Proposition 77, Schwarzenegger said that outcomes like that are "not real democracy."
