The ideological spirit of California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird lives on with Proposition 50

There is a lot of talk these days about gerrymandering, both in the context of Proposition 50 and in a pending challenge to a part of the Voters Rights Act of 1965 that requires that race be considered in redistricting so that a minority can be assured of districts in which they dominate. It seems like a good time to reflect on the career of a notorious California Supreme Court chief justice whose decisions are still reverberating today in the gerrymandering fight.

Rose Bird was appointed chief justice of the California Supreme Court in 1977 by Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown had distinguished himself by making unconventional and controversial appointments, and by his counterculture baiting of the conventional establishment. His publicized stunts included abandoning the glitz of the governor’s mansion for a mattress on the floor of a rock poster-decorated apartment, using an old battered Plymouth as his official ride, dating rock star Linda Ronstadt, and having a Sufi chanting choir perform at the traditional governor’s prayer breakfast. He had a pretty lively first tenure.

Appointing Bird as chief justice was one of Brown’s most controversial acts. While undeniably bright, she had absolutely no judicial experience and had been working as a public defender. She was also relatively young and thoroughly leftist.

Her leftist politics were demonstrated in her treatment of death penalty cases. While she assured everyone that she would be willing to enforce the politically popular death penalty in the right circumstances, she still voted to overturn it in every single one of the 61 death penalty cases that she considered during her tenure. She also voted to overturn the balanced budget initiative passed by the voters and spoke out against the Victims’ Bill of Rights. She voted to uphold the liability of the phone company in a lawsuit in which a drunk’s car went up on the sidewalk and hit the plaintiff who was in a sidewalk phone booth. Her decisions usually left conservatives and moderates either shaking their heads or sputtering in outrage.

California is no stranger to gerrymandering, the practice of drawing districts to either enhance or diminish the influence of particular groups of voters. Although Democrats only outnumber Republicans in California by less than 2 to 1 (approximately 45 percent to 25 percent), they have 43 of the state’s 52 Congressional seats, to only nine Republican seats, turning a less than 2 to 1 advantage in voters into a 4 to 1 advantage in congressional seats.

The redistricting following the 1980 census was a particularly grotesque affair. The Democrat-controlled Legislature fashioned elaborately shaped districts to assure themselves of friendly voters, which Democrat Phil Burton quipped were his “contribution to modern art.” Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s was especially distinctive. It slithered through friendly neighborhoods in San Francisco like a convulsing snake and then jumped across the Bay to Vallejo 30 miles away, to capture welcoming voters there. 

In reaction to this gerrymander, the angry voters of California passed an initiative soundly rejecting the Democratic reapportionment plan. The Democratic political leadership was frantic. Led by Chief Justice Bird, the California Supreme Court invalidated the initiative results using a flimsy pretext and reinstated the rejected plans as more “practicable.” Redistricting continued under the control of Democratic politicians, and the voters grew still angrier. 

The angry voters spoke again in 1986 when Bird was removed from office by an overwhelming 67 percent of the voters, becoming the first chief justice ever removed. Jerry Brown-appointed justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin were also removed. Justice Stanley Mosk, a moderate and respected liberal appointed by Pat Brown, was not challenged. 

In 2008, voters took redistricting away from the politicians, creating the California Redistricting Commission to set district lines. It seems to have generated little controversy.

But fast forward 17 years to the passage of Proposition 50, which bypasses the commission and imposes district maps drawn by the Democratic powerbrokers to benefit themselves. It seems that Democrats have recovered from their earlier complaints about gerrymandering, to actively embrace it, at least when they are the ones doing it.

Most of us are well adjusted enough to accept occasional political losses by “our side,” although perhaps with a bit of grumbling or whining. However, we are usually not so sanguine when the “other side” cheats by tampering with the democratic process. When the Bird court politically injected itself into the electoral process and corruptly overturned the voter’s choice to reject the 1982 gerrymander, it pissed me off so much that it turned me from an occasionally disillusioned Democrat into the ranting conservative curmudgeon that I am today. So the next time you find yourself outraged by some wrongheaded conservative opinion of mine, you can thank Rose Bird and her left-wing cronies. 

The ideological spirit of Rose Bird lives on in the form of Proposition 50, and California Democrats and may eventually create more cranky conservatives like myself. ∆

John Donegan is a retired attorney in Pismo Beach who is still in a snit about the decision 50 years later. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.

This article appears in Dec 18-25, 2025.