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The elimination of Cruz Reynoso, Maurice Grodin and Rose Bird from the California Supreme Court was a textbook-perfect political play pulled off by Gov. George Deukmejian and the state Republican Party. In 1986, Deukmejian was running for re-election, and four California Supreme Court justices were up for reconfirmation. Reynoso, Grodin and Chief Justice Bird were Jerry Brown appointees, and Stanley Mosk was a Pat Brown appointee.

Two PAC’s were aiming at Bird alone. Another was gunning for Bird, Reynoso and Grodin. Another had all four in its sights. With this kind of chaos the three prime offenders would have survived had not Deukmejian intervened.

Early in 1986, the heads of the four PAC’s got an invitation to come down to the governor’s office for a chat. The heads knew they would get a chance to make their pitch, but doubted that Deukmejian would risk his political capital in their cause with his own re-election in the balance. But did they ever get a shock!

Deukmejian told the PAC heads that he would support their cause and bring in the official might of the California Republican Party, thus making the reconfirmation battle a campaign issue. But the PAC’s had to agree to certain ground rules.

The four PAC’s would have to merge into one.
The unified PAC would be required to have its campaign literature and press releases vetted in advance by the state Republican organization, which would hire political consultants for the job. Nobody in the unified PAC was to open his mouth without the consultants’ permission.
The PAC was to target Reynoso, Grodin and Bird, but leave Stanley Mosk alone.

This controversial demand by Deukmejian turned out to be pure genius. Stanley Mosk had been on the California Supreme Court for two decades, having been appointed by Pat Brown. He was one of the most respected state jurists in the country. Deukmejian felt that tackling Mosk would make the effort to remove Reynoso, Grodin and Bird look like the work of extremists and thus damn the whole campaign. By publicly characterizing Mosk as a “responsible liberal” and damning the other three as “radical liberals”, the effort looked like the work of reasonable conservatives.

Besides, Mosk was a canny politician, and Deukmejian knew he would be a dangerous target. But once the three Jerry Brown appointees were gone and replaced by conservatives, Mosk and Alan Broussard would be isolated on the court and left powerless.

The state’s liberal establishment cranked up the machinery, and the institutional Democratic Party turned the reconfirmation of the three justices into party dogma. Democratic officeholders in marginal districts knew that the three were doomed and refused to back reconfirmation. The party then denied them campaign funds. This prompted a massive rebellion within the party outside of the cities. Democratic officeholders ran to Sacramento and screamed that the party brass was going to destroy them all in the name of political correctness. The decision about funding was reversed.

The Los Angeles Times then stepped in it big time by coming up with a convoluted—and ridiculous—reason to support the three justices. According to the US Constitution federal judges were to be insulated from the vagaries and whims of public opinion by the mechanism of lifetime appointment. The California Constitution’s reconfirmation provision was a flaw that permitted state judges to be voted upon and permitted court decisions to be judged by a public not competent to make such judgments. Therefore, reasoned the Times, the people must not make use of this flaw. The people were honor-bound and duty-bound to vote to reconfirm the three justices no matter how they felt about their decisions. It was a smarmy piece of logic and worked to the detriment of the liberal argument.

Bird lost by 3 to 1, and Grodin and Reynoso lost by 2 to 1. Mosk sailed to victory.

Either Clinton or Congress must have put Reynoso on the Civil Rights Commission as part of a jobs-for-the-boys program.