On September 25, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2766. It repeals sections of the election law that require candidates for party office to sign loyalty oaths. The law only applies to the Democratic, Republican, and American Independent Parties. The bill only passed because last year a Superior Court in San Luis Obispo County declared the oaths unconstitutional.

California still has an election law that says subversive parties should be removed from the ballot. In 1975 the legislative counsel ruled that law unconstitutional, but no one has ever introduced a bill to repeal that law. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously invalidated such laws in 1974 in Communist Party of Indiana v Whitcomb. Nevertheless, most Republican members of the California legislature voted “no” on AB 2766.