What a difference half a day makes.

Contrary to the earlier reporting from Politico that California Democrats might try to call a special election to get voter approval for a Democratic gerrymander of congressional districts (to counter the expected Texas Republican gerrymander), the latest from Politico suggests that Democrats may try to re-redistrict through ordinary legislation. I don’t think they have the power to do so, given the unequivocal language taking away that power from the Legislature in two voter initiatives amending the state constitution to establish a redistricting commission and to apply it to both state legislative and congressional redistricting. (In California, voter initiated ballot measures can only be amended by another vote of the people, unless the measure provides otherwise.)

Here’s the latest from Politico:

Call it the Fleetwood Mac option: California lawmakers could go their own way on a Democratic gerrymandering bid.

Redistricting experts have been briefing elections committee staff in the Legislature on a redraw strategy that would enlarge Democrats’ House margin without voter approval, Playbook has learned. That would avert an expensive and uncertain special election — saving Newsom and allies money for other ballot battles — but it would push Democratic lawmakers into uncharted legal terrain.

Voters bequeathed California its independent House redistricting commission in 2010, and because only voters can substantially amend ballot initiatives once they’ve passed, they may need to sign off on Newsom’s plan to redraw a few California House Republicans into oblivion.

Or they may not.

Newsom has argued there’s another option: simply having the Legislature craft new maps. He’s noted that California’s constitution is silent on mid-decade redistricting (as opposed to the once-a-decade commission process linked to the Census). Now UCLA Voting Rights Project experts are bolstering that argument to the Legislature.

Their legal analysis, shared exclusively with POLITICO after it was presented to legislative staffers this week, argues the Legislature “has the legal constitutional authority to draw new districts today” if it deems it “appropriate” — as Newsom and other Democrats have argued.

None of this means the Legislature will decide to circumvent voters. Attorney General Rob Bonta suggested yesterday that the cleanest route would be lawmakers putting a new map on the ballot. That would give Democrats political cover and help inoculate them from the legal challenge that would inevitably follow if the Legislature simply goes it alone — a path that could end in an embarrassing court rebuke.

The legal analysis engages in a kind of wooden textualism which I think is not in line with either the plain text of these ballot measures as a whole nor the clear purpose of both statutes to take the matter away of redistricting away from the state legislature. And I don’t think California courts will buy it if the Legislature takes this gambit.

There is an argument that fairness in congressional redistricting needs to be considered on a national basis, and that Democratic tit-for-tat gerrymanders to counter Republican gerrymanders are otherwise justified. I’m not endorsing that argument nor rejecting it. I’m saying that as far as California goes, there is a clean way to do it, as AG Bonta suggested, is taking the matter back to the voters. And I think that’s the right way to do it. Let the voters decide.

(Note: Although I am at UCLA, I have no role with the UCLA Voting Rights Project and had no hand in this memo.)