On September 2, the California Senate passed AB 446, which makes modest improvements in the procedure to qualify a new party. The only Senator who voted against the bill is Senator Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber). Ironically, back in 1979, in his first stint as a State Senator, he introduced a bill to greatly ease the law for new parties to get on the ballot. He did that on behalf of the American Party, which was a rival of the American Independent Party. It would have allowed any party to get on the ballot just by submitting a list of its officers and a copy of its bylaws, similar to the law now in effect in Florida and Mississippi.
AB 446 lowers the petition for a new party from 10% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 3%. This is a significant change, but it isn’t too meaningful because almost no group uses the petition procedure. Instead they almost invariably use the registration alternative, which requires members of .33% of the state registration total.
Parties do not get on the ballot in California, except for the office of president.
Voters may express a preference for any party. But for sabotage by Debra Bowen, and union workers in the SOS office candidates could have their party preference appear on the ballot just like they do in Washington.