U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte has set a scheduling conference for May 31, Friday, at 10 a.m., in Soltysik v Padilla. This is the case that challenges California law on ballot labels. If a candidate for Congress or partisan state office is a member of a qualified party, the candidate’s party of registration is printed on the ballot next to his or her name. But if the candidate is a registered member of an unqualified party, no party label can appear. The plaintiff is a registered Socialist.
Californians to Defend the Open Primary, which had intervened in this case from the beginning on the side of the state, has now dropped out of the case. Californians to Defend the Open Primary includes the Independent Voter Project, the California Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable.
How many YEARS since the Complaint was filed ???
Four.
So – the hacks got past [SUBVERTED] the 2016 and 2018 elections — so far ???
“party preference” is not derivative of “party”, but rather an aspirational expression by an individual voter. Parties become qualified or non-qualified based on the number of registrants expressing a party preference for that party. It would be non-sensical if “party preference” meant “qualified party preference”, because that would mean a preference for a non-qualified party was not a party preference.
Prior to Proposition 14, a party affiliation literally meant that a voter intended to affiliate with the party at the next primary. Most of the the time, party affiliation is meaningless, except for members of party central committees. Legislators elected under a party banner could change their affiliation, and in any event were not subject to the dictates of the party. Party registrants could contribute to candidates of other parties. We don’t know for certain whether Alex Padilla or Emidio Soltysik voted for Donald Trump. But for most ordinary voters it simply meant they intended to vote in the party’s next primary. If sufficient numbers had expressed that intent, California would provide them a primary.
Voters who had expressed an intent to affiliate with an “unqualified” party, or had declined to state their intentions, were generally restricted to voting in non-partisan races. Since these races received less media attention, the voter might stay home. Some parties did permit these voters to request their ballot, but it was a complicated procedure. An election clerk could not inform them of their options, and in any event, the voter might be coerced to choose a ballot based on their interest in a particular race.
We know that Alex Padilla intends to vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. But the Democratic party registration might fall to a level that the party is considered abandoned. Or the party might decide not to hold a primary. Circumstances might mean that Padilla doesn’t vote. He might move from the state, he might be in a coma or dead, or convicted of a felony, or maybe he will just decide not to vote. We also know that Emidio Soltysik intends to vote in the 2020 Socialist Party USA presidential primary. It is not known whether the party will be qualified or not.
SB 6 made this distinction clear by adding Elections Code 300.5, stating that a candidate’s party preference is what they disclosed on their affidavit of voter registration.
While California could have an interest in ensuring that party preferences are for an actual party, they certainly could not require that party to have 10s of thousands of registrants. California could adopt a system like in Florida where parties must maintain a semblance of structure and activity in order for voters to affiliate with the party, but party size does not matter.
But while California could adopt such a system, they are not required to. Instead, a voter discloses their party preference on their affidavit of voter registration, which a voter signs to indicate that the information is truthful and correct. If a voter is truthful about their name, address, age, citizenship, felony status, why would they lie about their party preference, particularly since they might be subject to prosecution for perjury. In addition, a 10-year party affiliation history for candidates is made available to voters.
Before the June 2010 primary at which Proposition 14 was approved by voters, the SOS issued CC/ROV Memorandum 10086 explaining that voters not affiliated with one of the six parties making nominations could request a ballot from one of the two parties that were permitting such voters to participate in California’s optional semi-closed primary. While the rubric applied to such voters was “Decline To State”, it in fact included both those formally registered as Decline To State and those who intended to affiliate with a non-qualified party.
Proposition 14 said that existing party affiliations would be converted to party preferences. In the conversion process, the party affiliations were converted to party preference. Dean Logan would treat the registrations of Alex Padilla and Emidio Soltyik alike. Only actual Decline To State (DTS) voters were converted to No Party Preference.
Proposition 14 was intended to comply with the SCOTUS decision in the Washington Grange case. In that decision, the SCOTUS accepted the argument of Washington State that a candidate’s party preference was a personal political expression. The issue on remand was whether or not voters would interpret the party preference as indicating nomination by the party. California risks such an interpretation by limiting expression of personal political beliefs to limited, orthodox, state-approved viewpoints.
The right of “qualified” political parties to participate in primaries for voter-nominated offices is illusory. Election Code 338 is not a grant of indeterminate “participation rights” in any (and all) primaries. It is a definition of the term ‘party’. The remainder of the election code determines the extent to which parties may participate in a particular type of primary.
Nobody would argue that political parties in California may participate in nonpartisan elections based on their being “qualified” to do so. They may of course participate informally. If Alex Padilla and Emidio Soltysik were to run for Mayor of Los Angeles or county supervisor in Los Angeles County, their respective parties might support them. But this is outside the scope of the Elections Code, and merely an exercise of 1st Amendment rights available to all persons.
Prior to Proposition 14, “qualified” parties had been granted significant privileges. They had state-funded exclusionary primaries, by which they nominated candidates. Other parties could only place candidates on the general election ballot by collecting considerable numbers of signatures, and then were denied the ability to have that candidate’s party name appear on the ballot. No one denied that David Bergland was affiliated with the Libertarian Party. But his nomination had not been made by Libertarians only, but rather from signers from the general electorate. He was compelled to appear on the ballot as having been an “Independent” nomination (technically, he did appear as a “Libertarian” due to a temporary injunction).
The fundamental purpose of Proposition 14 was to extirpate this privilege to make party nominations and have state-funded exclusionary primaries. All voters and candidates could participate on equal fooding regardless of their party preference. The voters are participants. The candidates are participants. The political parties are not partipants (see exception below) in a formal sense. They may of course support candidates. The Democratic Party was quite free to support Soltysik in his Assembly run in 2014. But the Socialist Party USA might have supportec Padilla when he ran for SOS. Nothing would have legally prevented Padilla and Soltysik from making joint campaign appearances or distributing flyers together.
The Democratic Party is not a participant when Alex Padilla expresses his preference for the Democratic Party, any more than when a child points out the window and exclaims that they like cows. The cow is not a participant in the transaction no matter how thoughtful they look while chewing their cud.
Qualified political parties do have the ability to communicate their endorsements to the public through the official voter information guide mailed to every registered voter. For by-mail voters, the guide is sent with the ballot. In 2018, 68% of the votes cast in the primary were by mail (65% in the general election).
Over the next few elections, California is likely to switch to all-mail elections. It would be reasonable to treat the information guide as part of the ballot material and let candidates express their political views more extensively than a party preference. The ballot itself could be reduced to candidate names only, since the profession/office/occupation designation could be included as part of the statement.
The right for qualified parties to make endorsements in the voter information guide is provided by Elections Code 13302(b) which was added by SB 6. It is noteworthy that this privilege is explicitly granted to “qualified political” parties. Had this not been exceptional, there would be no reason for the explicit modifier of “qualified.” But since all other channels of formal party participation had been eliminated, it was necessary to indicate this single exception.