California surrenders bid to threaten Trump ballot access after state high court loss

SAN FRANCISCO -- State officials gave up their effort to force President Donald J. Trump to disclose his tax returns as a condition of appearing on the ballot after the California Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously rejected laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that required it.

The state high court's ruling concluded the laws signed earlier this year conflicted with a June 1972 ballot initiative -- Proposition 4 -- written to ensure California voters would have the right to vote for any recognized presidential candidate who was competing in their party's primary.

"Whatever the Legislature's authority may be to define ground rules for presidential primary elections, article II, section 5(c) also includes a requirement of an inclusive ballot that such legislation must respect and embrace," Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote for the unanimous court. Patterson v. Padilla, 2019 DJDAR 10773.

After the court ruled the two state laws invalid, Secretary of State Alex Padilla confirmed through a spokesman his office was dropping its appeal of a federal judge's ruling finding the requirement unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Morris C. England Jr. of Sacramento found the laws unconstitutional. Donald J. Trump for President et al. v. Padilla et al., 19-01501 (E.D. Cal., filed Aug. 6, 2019).

The bills, SB 27 and SB 505, were passed by the Legislature as Democrats pushed Trump to release his tax returns, which he has refused to do. While presidential candidates and presidents have released some tax returns voluntarily since the post-Watergate reforms of the 1970s, there is no law requiring them to do so.

Trump is in the midst of litigation with Congress and the Manhattan district attorney over demands for his tax returns.

But the California cases turned on the constitutional rights of voters.

"They're trying to get his tax returns," said Derek T. Muller, a professor at Pepperdine University School of Law. "They're not trying to protect the state."

The federal lawsuit focused on violations of the First Amendment and 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution while the California case turned on claims the requirement violated the state constitution by denying voters the right to vote for their preferred candidate.

"We thought it was pretty straightforward," said Thomas W. Hiltachk, a partner with Bell McAndrews & Hiltachk in Sacramento who represented California Republican Party Chair Jessica Millan Patterson.

"Today's ruling is a victory for every California voter," Patterson said in a statement. "This unanimous decision solidifies the California State Constitutional provisions to place candidates on the ballot, and the important fact that the legislature may not place additional restrictions on those requirements."

California's old primary system required presidential candidates to "opt in," which some did not bother to do under the old political system in which state political leaders, such as former California Gov. Pat Brown, ran as "favorite sons" without an organized challenge by other candidates, Hiltachk said.

The 1972 ballot initiative required the secretary of state to place candidates on the ballot unless they opt out.

Pat Brown's son, former Gov. Jerry Brown, vetoed a bill aimed to require Trump to disclose his tax returns in order to appear on the California ballot.

"While I recognize the political attractiveness -- even the merits -- of getting President Trump's tax returns, I worry about the political perils of individual states seeking to regulate presidential elections in this manner," Jerry Brown wrote in a veto message.

California's bid to possibly deny ballot access to an incumbent isn't the first time a state has tried to block candidates from appearing on the ballot. In 1995. the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Arkansas law that would have barred ballot access to any candidate who already had served three terms in the House of Representatives or two terms in the U.S. Senate.

The vote was 5-4, with most of the court's liberals siding with the majority and Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting. U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995).