On August 24, a California Superior Court ruled that Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, and the California Independent Voters Network, and the campaign committee for “Yes on 14” , should all be allowed to intervene in the lawsuit that challenges two restrictive aspects of California’s “Top-two” system. The case is Field v Bowen, cgc10-502018, San Francisco. All three intervenors have the same set of attorneys.
In Court, the intervenors said that there is not necessarily a correspondence of viewpoints between the California Attorney General (who is charged with defending the challenged laws), and the viewpoints of the intervenors. However, they did not give any example of what those different viewpoints might be.
The hearing was a useful means for the attorneys from all sides to interact with the judge, and give the judge a sense of the case. The attorney for the plaintiffs, Gautam Dutta, made a brief argument on the merits of the case, which challenges the provision saying write-ins can’t be counted, and the provision that lets some, but not all, candidates put their party membership on the ballot. This was in the context that both of the challenged provisions limit voters’ rights, and therefore it is not rational for the intervenors to assert that they represent the interests of the voters. The other side, however, did not engage this argument.