EDITORIAL CANCEL THE ELECTION? NOV. 8 VOTE KEEPS ALIVE CHANCE OF MEANINGFUL REFORM IN SACRAMENTO.

WHEN a judge ruled earlier this month that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's legislative redistricting plan could not go on the ballot for November's special election, the usual suspects immediately began clamoring for the status quo. Special interests across the state cried out in unison, ``Cancel the special election!''

But hold on.

For all of Schwarzenegger's self-inflicted setbacks, the hope for reform in California is far from dead.

For starters, the state's 3rd District Court of Appeal has stayed the lower court's ruling striking the redistricting measure from the ballot. And there's still a chance the court will decide to let Californians vote on the measure after all.

Then there's the question of whether state leaders could cancel the special election even if they wanted to.

There is no precedent for such an action. The California Legislature would have to pass - and the governor would have to sign - emergency legislation that would surely be challenged by the various advocacy groups that are already mounting campaigns on behalf of their pet initiatives.

For all the hand-wringing over the $50 million a special election would cost, no one has begun to figure how much fending off all the lawsuits and appeals might cost.

But apart from the practical arguments for proceeding with the special election, there's also the hope that true reform can be achieved.

Already on the ballot are measures governing teacher tenure and limiting state spending - valuable reforms in their own right.

And in addition to these measures is the more promising prospect that the governor and the Legislature may still craft a bipartisan reform agenda - a prospect the special election makes far more likely.

That's because Schwarzenegger has one powerful weapon left in his political arsenal: Proposition 75, which would require public-employee unions to obtain members' permission before spending union dues on political campaigns. The unions dread the measure and, by extension, so do Sacramento's Democrats.

So far, Schwarzenegger has not yet taken a position on Proposition 75, making it the ultimate political bargaining chip. As long as he can credibly threaten one of the Democrats' prime sources of campaign funding, Democrats will have to deal with him.

So let's hold off on this talk of canceling the special election. The political and legal wrangling in Sacramento is still ongoing, and California's voters could still end up the winners.