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ballot-access.org: https://ballot-access.org/2026/05/21/may-2026-ballot-access-news-print-edition/

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Friday, May 22, 2026

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May 2026 Ballot Access News Print Edition | ↓ Home Menu ↓ Skip to primary content Skip to secondary content Home Print Issues Useful Information Links of Interest Extra Features Additional articles/essays Essays by Richard Winger Subscribe To Ballot Access News Home → Uncategorized → May 2026 Ballot Access News Print Edition Post navigation ← California Might See an Initiative Petition for a Top-Four System in 2028 May 2026 Ballot Access News Print Edition Posted on May 21, 2026 by Richard Winger May 21, 2026 U.S. DISTRICT COURT MOSTLY UPHOLDS CALIFORNIA TOP-TWO, BUT KEEPS CASE ALIVE ON TWO POINTS On April 13, U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney mostly upheld California’s top-two system as it affects minor parties. But, she wrote that two aspects of the law ar

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May 2026 Ballot Access News Print Edition | ↓ Home Menu ↓ Skip to primary content Skip to secondary content Home Print Issues Useful Information Links of Interest Extra Features Additional articles/essays Essays by Richard Winger Subscribe To Ballot Access News Home → Uncategorized → May 2026 Ballot Access News Print Edition Post navigation ← California Might See an Initiative Petition for a Top-Four System in 2028 May 2026 Ballot Access News Print Edition Posted on May 21, 2026 by Richard Winger May 21, 2026 U.S. DISTRICT COURT MOSTLY UPHOLDS CALIFORNIA TOP-TWO, BUT KEEPS CASE ALIVE ON TWO POINTS On April 13, U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney mostly upheld California’s top-two system as it affects minor parties. But, she wrote that two aspects of the law are perhaps unconstitutional, and she is permitting further activity in the case for those two points. Those two issues are: (1) members of unqualified parties can’t have their party labels on the primary ballot, whereas members of qualified parties may have their party label; and (2) the top-two system in presidential years requires all candidates to file in December of the year before the election, thus freezing the status quo during the election year itself. The California top-two system operates differently in presidential years than it does in midterm years. In presidential years, the congressional and state office primary is in the first week in March; in midterm years it is in June. So, the filing deadlines are far more onerous in presidential years. The case is Peace and Freedom Party v Weber, n.d., 3:24cv-8308. The plaintiff political parties are the American Solidarity, Green, Libertarian, and Peace & Freedom Parties. Judge Chesney said that the latter three parties already lost in the State Court of Appeals in Rubin v Padilla in 2015, and therefore they can’t relitigate the basic point about top-two. But the American Solidarity Party had not been in the earlier case, so Judge Chesney had to make a decision about the merits. Disappointingly, all she said to uphold top-two is that the U.S. Supreme Court had already upheld it, inside the last few pages of its 2000 decision California Democratic Party v Jones. In that decision, Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the decision, struck down the old California blanket primary that was in effect in 1998 and 2000 on freedom of association grounds. Then he grattuitously wrote that if California had a theoretical “nonpartisan blanket primary”, that would be constitutional. Scalia’s hypothetical clearly referred to a system in which there are no party labels on the ballot. We know this is true because he dissented in 2008 in Washington State Grange v Washington Republican Party. Scalia wrote in 2008 that it violates freedom of association for a state to print party labels on the ballot when there is no mechanism for a party to nominate candidates. It is obvious that the hypothetical idea he mentioned in 2000 does not

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