Forty-seven years ago, California’s voters opened the state’s presidential primaries to all nationally recognized candidates. That ballot measure could determine the fate of a new state law requiring President Trump and his competitors to release their tax returns to run in next year’s primaries.
California’s presidential primaries used to be friendly territory for “favorite sons” who weren’t running national campaigns. In 1960, when John F. Kennedy was elected president, the only major candidate on the state’s Democratic primary ballot was Gov. Pat Brown. And Richard Nixon’s 1968 election was preceded by a Republican primary in his home state in which the only listed candidate was Gov. Ronald Reagan.
So in 1972, 61% of the state’s voters approved Proposition 4, a state constitutional amendment, which said the presidential primary ballot must list “recognized candidates throughout the nation or throughout California,” as determined by the secretary of state. Now the state Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Prop. 4 prohibits California from requiring Trump to disclose five years of tax returns to appear on next year’s Republican primary ballot.
They said the new state law on tax returns, sponsored by Democrats and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would prohibit Secretary of State Alex Padilla “from exercising his constitutionally delegated duty to place the name of all nationally recognized presidential candidates” on the ballot.
