On November 21, the Peace & Freedom Party and the Libertarian Party of California, along with the Green Party of Alameda County, filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Alameda County, complaining that Proposition 14, the “top-two” measure passed in June 2010 by the voters, violates the rights of voters to vote freely in November, and also that the measure violates the Associational rights of political parties and their candidates. The case is Rubin v Bowen, RG 11-605301. Here is the complaint.
The lawsuit was filed by the law firm of Siegel and Yee, one of the best-known law firms in Alameda County, California.
This is the first lawsuit in California to allege that the essense of the top-two system is unconstitutional. There have been two lawsuits in California pending since 2010 that allege that two particular details of the California top-two primary system are unconstitutional. The two particular details attacked in those earlier lawsuits are the ban on counting write-in votes (even though the law says write-in space should be printed on the ballot), and the fact that some candidates may express their political views on the ballot but others may not. Those lawsuits are called Field v Bowen and Chamness v Bowen. The courts have not yet granted injunctive relief in either of those cases, although they are still pending.