The California Republican Party keeps making matters worse as it struggles against what seems inevitable.
On Friday, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided to leave in place state Senate district maps drawn by the voter-created California Redistricting Commission. This was the second time the GOP turned to the court for help, and the second time it was slapped down.
The Republicans spent – and probably wasted – $2 million on its drive to qualify a referendum challenging the maps. It's not certain that the measure will qualify for the November ballot.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen is conducting a count to determine whether the GOP submitted at least 504,000 valid signatures.
The party urged the court to declare that its measure would qualify, a step that would have placed maps drawn by the commission on hold until after a statewide vote.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, in an opinion signed by five other justices, rejected the request, which at best was premature. If the referendum qualifies for the ballot and if voters approve it, the court would need to act, probably by appointing experts who would draw new maps for the 2014 election.
Republican Party leaders blasted the decision as partisan, even though Republican governors had appointed Cantil-Sakauye and the other five justices who signed onto her opinion.
Republican consultant Dave Gilliard, overseeing the referendum campaign, said in an email that "the court's decision was a highly political, Rose Bird-style slap in the face of the voters and the referendum process."
Really?
Interesting, Brown's one appointee to the current court, Justice Goodwin Liu, wrote separately to urge that the court stay out of redistricting. Citing past redistricting cases, including a decision by a bitterly divided court when Bird was chief justice, Liu wrote that "as this court's own experience shows, redistricting controversies are fraught with political peril."
Republicans pushed for the initiative that created the redistricting commission.
Instead of blaming, suing and wasting its donors' money, the GOP should recruit candidates who can win.
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