Dan Walters: Rose Bird court laid groundwork for current redistricting decision

Rose Bird's ghost hung over the California Supreme Court as it wrestled with what to do about a referendum to overturn the state Senate districts wrought by a new redistricting commission.

Ultimately, she – or her legal position – prevailed.

Despite her utter lack of judicial experience, then-Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Bird, an old friend, as the state's first female chief justice in 1977. And she quickly proved to be a dogmatic liberal who often alienated other justices, even fellow liberals.

When Brown and Democratic legislators enacted blatantly self-serving redistricting plans after the 1980 census, Republicans responded with a referendum to place the gerrymander before voters.

Ordinarily, a law subject to referendum is suspended until voters speak, but the Bird court, on a 4-3 vote, ordered Democrats' districts to be used for the 1982 elections anyway. It contrasted with the court's decree a decade earlier that existing districts be used for the 1972 elections because of a political stalemate on redistricting.

Republicans were outraged by that Bird court decision and another invalidating a GOP reapportionment reform ballot measure. Their anger became white-hot when Assembly Speaker Willie Brown publicly crowed that "Sister Rose and the Supremes took care of that little matter," thus helping Democrats solidify control of the Legislature and congressional seats.

Conservatives retaliated with a successful campaign to oust Bird and two other liberals when they came up for voter confirmation four years later, citing not only redistricting but their opposition to capital punishment. Bird vanished into obscurity and died in 1999.

Today, Republicans are pursuing another referendum to overturn the commission's Senate redistricting plan because were it to be used in 2012, Democrats would have a very good chance of achieving a two-thirds supermajority and thus the power to pass taxes without GOP votes.

The names on the referendum are still being counted, but the Supreme Court had to decide which Senate districts would be used this year. Republicans wanted justices to either draw new districts, as they did after the 1970 and 1990 censuses due to political stalemate, or use the old districts that were drawn in 2001.

Citing the Bird court's 1982 decree, however, the court decided it could require use of districts that are subject to referendum and declared that they would be fairer than the old districts or anything that they could devise.

Chances are, the referendum will qualify for the ballot, but it would be anticlimactic because the political stakes are about what happens this year, not in some future election.

Roughly speaking, Democrats need win only one of three contentious Senate districts to reach their 27-seat Holy Grail.