Last year, a professional petitioner who lives in Wisconsin sued nineteen California counties, arguing that he should be permitted to circulate petitions in California. That case is Raymond v various county election officials, eastern district, 2:12cv-2215. The counties asked the court to bring the Secretary of State and the Attorney General into the case. Attorneys for the counties, many of which are small population counties, wanted the Attorney General and the Secretary of State to defend the constitutionality of the residency requirement, instead of having to do that themselves.

However, on May 3, U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell denied the request of the counties. He noted that a parallel case called Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County v Bowen is pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, and said the Secretary of State and the Attorney General are handling that case. Judge Burrell also postponed the next hearing in his case from June 3 to June 17.

The two cases do not involve precisely the same issues. The Los Angeles Libertarian Party case only challenges California laws that require circulators to live in the district in which they are petitioning. But the Raymond case challenges the California law that bars out-of-state circulators. The California legislature could moot both lawsuits if it would just repeal the residency requirements for circulators. One bill to do that, SB 213, has already passed the Senate Elections Committee and will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 23.