The Ninth Circuit has notified attorneys in Merritt v Padilla, 18-55457, that it would like to hold oral argument in October 2019 if the attorneys find that month acceptable. This case arose when the California Secretary of State deleted a few words in Paul Merritt’s ballot pamphlet statement, when Merritt was running for U.S. Senate in 2016. Merritt, who paid to have his statement published in the state voter pamphlet, said he is an independent candidate. The Secretary of State deleted those words. In California, independent candidates (except presidential independents) cannot have “independent” as a ballot label. Instead they must have “party preference: none.”

Furthermore, the Secretary of State did not even inform Merritt that his words had been censored. Merritt only found out when his county registrar of voters told him. Yet the U.S. District Court ruled in 2017 that the Secretary of State did not violate the First Amendment, so then Merritt appealed to the Ninth Circuit.