GOP group seeks to block use of redrawn districts

In a high-stakes political case, a Republican lawyer urged the California Supreme Court on Tuesday to prevent the use of a commission's new state Senate boundaries in this year's elections, even if the resulting districts have unequal populations.

A Republican-backed referendum challenging the new districts is likely to qualify for the November ballot, attorney Charles Bell told the court, and allowing the commission's redrawn districts in the elections in June and November would undermine the referendum process. Twenty of the state's 40 Senate seats will be at stake this year.

The commission, created by a voter initiative in 2008, realigned the districts in a bipartisan vote in August to account for population shifts documented in the 2010 census. The referendum drive was spurred by the possibility that the new lines would let Democrats pick up two Senate seats and gain the two-thirds majority needed in the state Legislature to approve tax increases.

At a hearing in San Francisco on Tuesday, Bell, who is representing the ballot measure's sponsors, argued that "if the court gives short shift to the referendum process, it ... removes any political check from the commission."

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