October 15 was the last day for California Governor Jerry Brown to sign or veto bills. Late in the evening of the last day, he vetoed SB 149, which would have required presidential primary candidates to reveal their income tax returns.

An earlier version of this post said he had allowed it to become law without his signature. That was erroneous. I was fooled because most days the Governor only issues one summary of what he has done about bills, and the SB 149 veto was not in the day’s first batch. But he put out a second batch of news about bills after 10:30 pm but before midnight. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the accurate news.

Here is the veto message. It says, “A qualified candidate’s ability to appear on the ballot is fundamental to our democratic system. For that reason, I hesitate to start down a road that well might lead to an ever escalating set of differing state requirements for presidential candidates.”

On October 15, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 837. It sets forth many steps that election officials must take, in order to inform independent voters that they are free to choose the primary ballot of parties that allow independents to vote in their primaries.

Currently the bill only applies to presidential primaries, because California currently doesn’t have party nominees for office other than president. But if the top-two system is ever repealed, and there are again party primaries for congress and state office, the new law will apply to those primaries as well.

During the period 2001-2010, both the Republican and Democratic Parties allowed independent voters to vote in all their congressional/state office primaries. But even though the California Secretary of State had regulations during that period, instructing county election officials to inform independent voters of their choices, no law existed, requiring such information to be disseminated.

In 2016, the Democratic, American Independent, and Libertarian Parties let independents vote in their presidential primaries; but the Republican, Green, and Peace & Freedom Parties did not. However, many independent voters did not realize they were free to vote in any presidential primaries, and complaints about that caused AB 837 to be introduced and passed.

Governor Brown’s office still hasn’t released any information on his actions regarding SB 149 (income tax returns for presidential primary candidates) and AB 469 (changes to the petition in lieu of filing fee). This post is being written at 5:30 p.m. California time.