On October 26, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Kunde v Seiler, S195849. This is the lawsuit over whether San Diego County election officials were correct when they let the Republican Party include campaign literature in the same envelope in which the government mailed sample ballots in May 2010 to Republican registrants. The election code lets parties include a self-addressed stamped envelope to make it easy for that voter to send a contribution to that party. The State Court of Appeals had ruled on July 13, 2011, that the law inplicitly permits party literature as well. The State Court of Appeals decision will now stand.

The Americans Elect web page says 2,057,241 signatures have collected on ballot access petitions around the nation. Last week’s total had been 2,008,069. Therefore, 49,172 signatures have been collected in the past week. By contrast, 69,604 signatures had been collected in the preceding week.

On November 17, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that proponents of a state initiative have standing to defend their initiative in court, if their initiative passes, but a trial court invalidates their measure and the then state government refuses to appeal. Perry v Brown, S189476.

As a result, it is likely that the Ninth Circuit will now begin the process of deciding whether California’s state constitutional provision barring same-sex marriages violates the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. District Court had said the ban does violate the U.S. Constitution, and the 9th circuit had delayed taking up the appeal until the State Supreme Court answered the question about standing for initiative proponents.