Case: Macarro v. Padilla

On June 9, 2020, four individual petitioners and the Coalition to Authorize Regulated Sports Wagering, Sponsored by California Indian Gaming Tribes ("Coalition to Authorize Regulated Sports Wagering") filed a complaint in the Superior County Court of the State of California, County of Sacramento. The plaintiffs sued Alex Padilla in his official capacity as Secretary of State of the State of California. Plaintiffs argued that the statutorily imposed 180 day signature gathering period in the state of California was unconstitutional in light of competing COVID-19 lockdown measures which stopped all in-person signature gathering in mid-March. California Elections Code section 9014(b) required all petition signatures for a statewide initiative petition be filed within 180 days of state approval for the petition’s circulation. Petitioners argued this statute was unconstitutional, under article II, section 8 of the California Constitution and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, in light of state stay-at-home orders. To remedy this harm, Petitioners requested an extension of the 180-day deadline in light of the unanticipated circumstances presented by COVID-19 to allow additional time to circulate their petitions and qualify for the November 2022 election.

The case was assigned to Judge James P. Arguelles. 

On June 30, 2020, the Court issued an order stipulating that this case be related to another election case, Sangiacomo v. Padilla, filed by another group gathering signatures to attempt to get on a statewide ballot. This request was granted because the cases involved the same issues of law and fact, namely whether the 180-day deadline in Elections Code 9014(b) was unconstitutional as applied to the petitions in these cases based on the restrictions imposed by California’s stay-at-home orders.

Shortly thereafter, on July 2, 2020, Respondent issued a statement in response to Petitioners’ Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Petition for Writ of Mandate. This response stipulated that Respondent would not be filing an opposition brief and that the Secretary of State’s office held the primary concern of ensuring that relief granted did not impact the administration of the 2020 election. The Statement concluded that Respondent would work with Petitioner’s counsel to resolve the action while addressing California’s concerns.

The result of those negotiations can be seen in the Court’s Final order for a Judgement Granting Petition for Writ of Mandate, entered on July 17, 2020. This Final Order accepted the agreed upon order and entered judgement in favor of the Petitioners, extending the deadline by which Petitioners had to submit their complete number of signatures. The Final Ruling established that there would be no interference with the 2020 election because Petitioners decided to qualify their initiative for the 2022 statewide election instead, addressing Respondent’s concerns. Petitioners being reasonably diligent in their signature collection in the existing 180-day period coupled with stay-at-home orders significantly inhibited Petitioners’ ability to place their ability on the November 2022 ballot without an extension. Because this deadline was not narrowly tailored when applied to the current circumstances, Petitioners and Respondent agreed that it must be extended to avoid a First Amendment violation. As a resolution, the Court ordered an extension of the 180-day period by 49 days, the time period where Petitioners were “virtually” barred from collecting any signatures to support their initiative. While the Court refused to create an indefinite deadline, the Court retained jurisdiction so that there could be further judicial relief without a new case filing if additional extensions of the deadline were to be necessary.

On September 15, 2020, the parties agreed to add an additional 62 days to the deadline for filing based on California’s continued stay-at-home rules. Petitioners and Respondent agreed that Petitioners had only been able to obtain 16% of the signatures that they would have been able to obtain prior to the stay-at-home orders. The parties therefore resolved to extend the deadline by 62 days by reducing the number of days occurring since the Court’s judgement (74) by 16%.

---------------------------------

NOTE: This case is being tracked in close to real time by the Stanford/MIT Healthy Elections Project. So for information, see their tracker.

According to their summary as of 09/01/2020,

Proponents of ballot initiative seek a suspension or extension of the usual 180-day deadline for collecting petition signatures for such an initiative. They allege that COVID restrictions have impeded their ability to collect signatures, and that a failure to relax the deadline would, among other things, constitute a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs sought a peremptory writ of mandamus extending the 180 day deadline until all counties had been authorized to move to stage 3 of the re-opening guidelines.