Presentation: Update on Legal Cases vs. Top Two, other amends to mitigate its effects

Presentation: Update on Rubin v. Bowen and the GPCA's amicus brief, other legal challenges to Top Two, the passage of AB2351 and potential other efforts to amend the state elections code to address negative effects of Proposition 14 on the state's smaller, ballot qualified parties

Sponsor: Coordinating Committee

Background: Proposition 14 was passed in the June 2010 California primary and changed the way the state conducts its elections. Party primaries were eliminated and no longer does a candidate from every ballot qualified party appear on the General Election ballot.  Proposition 14 provides multiple threats to the Green Party and the state's other smaller, ballot-qualified parties, as summarized in this memo co-authored by the Green, Libertarian and Peace and Freedom parties.

In November 2011 Rubin v. Bowen, a challenge to Proposition 14 as was filed in Oakland by the Green Party of Alameda County, the Libertarian and the Peace and Freedom Parties of California, and a number of individuals, including California Greens Michael Rubin and Kate Tanaka. The GPCA filed an amicus brief in support of the case in August 2014. The case will next be heard in the 1st District Court of Appeals on January 15.

In the meantime, given the threat to smaller party ballot status, in 2013 and 2014 the Green Party successfully worked with the Libertarian Party, the Peace and Freedom Party and Assemblymember Rich Gordon (author) to craft AB2351, which was signed into law by Governor Brown in September 2014, and which lowered the number of voter registrations needed for parties to retain ballot status. While this keeps the parties on the ballot, Top Two weakend the parties ability to run candidates by raising the signature-in-lieu of filing fee requirement, which combined with the cost of ballot statements, has made it extremely costly for smaller party candidates to run. Reforms to address this will be discussed in Monterey.

Presentation: Michael Rubin (Rubin v. Bowen) will make presentation in person, GPCA Attorney Guattam Dutta will present electronically.