The consultant who helped design California's new congressional map is not appearing before a court that could decide the map's fate today. The three-judge federal panel is meeting for a third and final time today in Los Angeles. Before them is a lawsuit from Republican lawmakers who want to overturn the map approved by voters. Democrats are fighting to keep the map in place. Paul Mitchell, the consultant who created the map, has not testified. He did sit for a deposition, but the GOP lawyers want to question him in court. It looks like that won't happen. Because he lives in Sacramento and is 100 miles away from the courtroom in Los Angeles, the judges won't compel him to appear.