SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — A paperwork mistake made 16 months ago will cost California Governor Gavin Newsom a party label on the upcoming recall ballot, a state judge ruled Monday.
Newsom sought a do over to erase a filing flub his attorney made in early 2020 and argued elections officials should smooth over the mistake and give the Democrat a "D" beside his name on the to-be-printed recall ballots. But Newsom’s lawyers couldn’t persuade Sacramento Superior Court Judge James Arguelles, who said Monday the election deadline — which Newsom OK'd in 2019 — must be enforced.
As a result, Newsom won’t have a party affiliation, unlike the dozens of candidates hoping to replace him in the Sept. 14 special election.
The governor argued that the lack of party affiliation would effectively mislabel him, something Arguelles pushed back on.
"First, Governor Newsom's failure to designate a party preference will not result in a ballot identifying him as 'Party Preference: None.' Rather, there will be no reference to party preference next to his name one way or the other. Instead, the recall ballot will simply ask whether he should be recalled," Arguelles wrote in an 11-page ruling.
In an unexpected development that drew puzzled reactions from pundits and politicians around the state, Newsom last month revealed a paperwork flub was going to prevent him from carrying a party label on the recall ballot. The self-induced error added another layer of intrigue to the recall he and state Democrats are spinning as a GOP “partisan power grab” that will cost taxpayers nearly $300 million.
While responding to the recall petition back in February 2020, Newsom’s legal team didn’t file a party preference form with elections officials. After realizing the mistake more than a year later, Newsom asked California Secretary of State Shirley Weber to correct the error.
Weber determined Newsom had missed the filing deadline and thus should be listed on the ballot without a party label. Newsom, who appointed Weber in 2020, responded days later with the elections lawsuit.
Weber is named in the lawsuit but reiterated in court filings and during oral arguments that she believes ignoring the missed deadline is best for voters in this instance.
“We think the best way to jealously guard the people’s right is to give as much information to voters as possible,” Weber’s private counsel said last week in an hourlong hearing on Newsom’s petition for writ of mandate.
Though Weber didn’t push back on the lawsuit, the recall proponents and Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, who is running in the election, did.
Their attorneys argued the doctrine of substantial compliance doesn’t apply to the case, saying Newsom didn’t commit a typo or check the wrong box, he failed to fill out the party affiliation form entirely. They accuse Newsom of putting himself above the very law he signed.
“It comes down to whether the governor of California has to follow the unambiguous law,” said Eric Early on behalf of the Recall Governor Gavin Newsom group.
“Californians see this partisan recall for what it is — a Republican power grab, and across the state you see Democrats united behind Governor Newsom. Governor Newsom will defeat this Republican recall,” said Nathan Click, communications director for the Newsom campaign.
In the past, party preferences for California officeholders facing recall weren’t listed on the ballot — as was the case in 2003 when former Governor Gray Davis was recalled. But that changed in 2020 thanks to Senate Bill 151 which cleared the Legislature unanimously and was later signed by Newsom.
Along with Jenner, nearly 100 people have signed up to run in the recall. Other notable candidates include former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Republican Assemblyman Kevin Kiley and former Republican state Senator Ted Gaines.
Statewide voters will be tasked with answering two questions: “Should Newsom be removed from office?” and “If yes, who should take his place?” If more than 50% respond yes, the candidate who receives the most votes under the second question will be elected to finish Newsom’s term.
A statewide poll taken in May found 40% of respondents plan to vote yes for the recall along with 54% job approval ratings for the first-term governor.
Arguelles is the same judge that granted proponents of the Newsom recall as well as proposed ballot initiatives an extra four months to collect signatures in 2020. He agreed the petitioners should get extra time as they missed out on signature gathering opportunities due to the pandemic.
The crux of Newsom’s argument was that the doctrine of substantial compliance should be applied when examining the situation. He said enforcing the filing deadline would undermine the integrity of SB 151 and give the recall candidates an unfair advantage.
But Arguelles, who former President Donald Trump unsuccessfully tried to promote to the Eastern District of California last year, said the language of the elections code was unambiguous and that judicial intervention wasn’t necessary as Newsom’s flub wasn’t due to “unique circumstances” or bad legal advice.
“Governor Newsom does not assert that Secretary Weber or another public officer or entity advised him to disregard the deadline,” the 11-page ruling continues. “Nor could he assert reasonable reliance on such advice: he signed SB 151 into law just weeks before the deadline on his party preference designation passed.”
Eric Early, attorney for the recall proponents, celebrated the ruling in a statement.
“Newsom thought he could go to Court and get his case rubber-stamped without opposition. Then we showed up and said, ‘not so fast.’”
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