(a) Notwithstanding Section 6027, a judicial decree establishing a newspaper as a newspaper of general circulation in a former judicial district shall be treated as a judicial decree establishing the newspaper as a newspaper of general circulation in the successor public notice district.
(b) For the purposes of this section, the “successor public notice district” is the public notice district, described in Article 2, that contains substantially the same population centers as the applicable, former judicial district preserved for notice publication by former Section 71042.5.