California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero delivered a ruling on Wednesday evening, rejecting the petition from several Republican members of the California legislature. These legislators requested the court to block the implementation of Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Election Rigging Act.
BREAKING: California Supreme Court denies Republicans’ request to intervene on the Democratic Redistricting legislation.
“Petitioners have failed to meet their burden of establishing a basis for relief..” pic.twitter.com/Q7RqtORUdy
— Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) August 21, 2025
Earlier this week, state Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach), Sen. Suzette Valladares (R-Antelope Valley), Assemblymember Kate Sanchez (R-Mission Viejo), and Assemblymember Tri Ta (R-Westminster) submitted a petition. They argued that the act violated the California Constitution’s thirty-day rule.
Their petition highlighted that to bypass the public’s constitutional rights under the thirty-day rule, the Legislature removed the contents of two unrelated bills, Assembly Bill 604 (“AB 604”) and Senate Bill 280 (“SB 280”), and replaced them with the new legislative package’s content.
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The legislators contended that this maneuver, known as ‘gut and amend,’ undermines the public’s constitutional right to review new legislation for thirty days. According to them, the public only had access to the bill numbers, AB 604 and SB 280, for over thirty days, rather than the actual proposed legislation content.
The core issue for the court to consider in this case was whether the constitutional right refers only to the publication of a bill number, or if it also includes the publication of the actual proposed legislation within the bill.
It’s not surprising that the California Supreme Court ruled for Newsom; they’ve rarely dialed back any of his mandates.
