On March 25, the California State Appeals Court refused to put Che Ahn on the ballot as a gubernatorial candidate. Ahn v Superior Court, C105918. Ahn was kept off the ballot because he didn’t file his income tax returns for the last five years with the Secretary of State.
The Court did not explain its reasoning.
This news story says the Arizona Independent Party will appeal the decision that it can’t change its name. The ruling yesterday ignored all the precedents from the U.S. Supreme Court about freedom of association. It ignored all the history of parties that have changed their names in the past. Even the two major parties have changed their names in the past, but none of that got into the court’s seven-page decision.
It is the essence of freedom that individuals and groups decide for themselves about their name. Can one imagine a government telling a church that it can’t change its name?
On Marh 25, a California state trial court ruled that voters who sign petitions for candidates must fill out the address blank personally. If the petition signer lets someone else fill in the address, the signature is invalid. Calhoon v Weber, 26WM000063, Sacramento Superior Court. As a result, the plaintiff, Earnest Rey Calhoon, will not be on the ballot for Assembly, 79th district.
The tentative candidate list issued by the California Secretary of State reveals that there are eight Assembly districts in which only one person filed to be on the June 2 primary ballot. Therefore, in those eight districts, a candidate who files as a declared write-in candidate has a chance to appear on the November ballot. All the write-in candidate needs to do is out-poll any other primary write-in candidate.
The eight Assembly districts are: 4,8,17,22,32,54,61 and 63.
On March 25, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Gilbert v The Superior Court of Sacramento County, S295810. This is the challenge to the Secretary of State’s policy that she cannot examine the constitutional qualifications of candidates for Governor.
