> The Court ruled that the law’s history, along with the Fish and Game Commission’s previous decision to declare a species of snail that lives on land as a threatened fish, meant that the Commission could count bees as invertebrates, which fall under the Commission’s definition of fish.

Somehow this logic is reminiscent of the "if she weighs the same as a duck she's made of wood so she floats in water" skit

While the article leads early on with “the laws history” as the justification, that's not really accurate, it's really about the plain language of the law, and the consideration of history is just why the court didn't narrow the definition from what the plain text of the law says.

The plain text of the law, as noted later in the article, defines “fish” as used in granting authority to the Commission as “a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals.”

(It's fairly common for news articles to lead with a constructed, controversy-stimulating narrative in the first few paragraphs and then have the facts that undercut that narrative later in the article.)

It's obviously about aquatic creatures. Even in the limited quote, this is absolutely clear.

Can motivated judges pick at the language and do whatever they want? Apparently in California they can.

So... this... is... an... example... of fake news?

No, it's an example of news with a sensationalist spin. It's not false, it just selectively prioritizes factors for presentation to make it seem more noteworthy than it is, demoting (but still including) the relevant elements that undercut that impression.

With a 3/4 majority in the legislature and the governor, you have to wonder why Democrats can't just amend the law instead of relying on such a strained interpretation by judges.

> strained interpretation by judges.

It's not, it's literally the definition in the law in black and white.

Now, the law has a very strange definition of “fish”, but it very expressly includes, among other things, any inverterbrate. The only reason the court also looked to other indicia was to see if there was evidence that the express text was intended to be more limited than it appears on its face, such as to only apply to aquatic invertebrates.