After voting overwhelmingly Democratic in the midterm elections, California is about to get even more blue. Democrats control the executive branch, have a huge majority in the Legislature and for the first time in decades will have a numerical edge on the state’s Supreme Court: The expected confirmation this month of Joshua Groban, an adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown, will result in a court of four Democratic-appointed justices and three Republican-appointed ones.

If it were Washington, pundits would declare a political hat trick. The fact that it’s not Washington was made clear on Tuesday in the annual state-of-the-judiciary briefing held by Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye.

The chief justice is a Republican who was appointed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yet she described the 600 court appointments that Governor Brown has made during his two terms as “fantastic.” She praised the state Supreme Court’s consensus-based approach and said she doubted that the court would be much different with a majority of Democratic-appointed justices.