Update, Oct. 17: We originally published this story May 4, before California's June 7 primary election. We've updated it to note that Senator Alex Padilla will also be appearing twice on November's ballot.
Update, Nov. 9: Senator Alex Padilla won both contests, according to race calls by the Associated Press.
California voters might do a double take when they find two races with Senator Alex Padilla on the November ballot.
Here’s the explanation: The separate but related U.S. Senate contests are asking voters to allow Padilla to finish one truncated Senate term and then begin a new one.
Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Padilla in January 2021 to fill Vice President Kamala Harris’ vacant senate seat after she was sworn in to her new White House position.
Californians elected Harris to the senate in 2016, a six-year term that runs through January 2023. But a law signed by Newsom last year prevents Padilla from finishing Harris’ term as an appointed senator.
Instead, he must compete with a slew of other candidates for both the partial term and for a new six-year stint.
Voting experts say there’s nothing wrong with the ballot. It’s just a strange set of circumstances that California voters will be called upon to sort out for the second time this year. Padilla competed in the same two contests in the June primary, gaining 54% of the vote in each. That was far ahead of Republican constitutional attorney Mark Meuser, who came in second at 14.8% and advanced with Padilla to the November runoff.
California’s primary system guarantees the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation.
“It definitely could be the kind of thing that leads to misinformation and disinformation because it’s unusual and confusing,” Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, which advocates for voter rights, predicted before the primary. “I think everybody involved in voter education is going to have to make an extra effort to make sure that voters understand that this is happening and that this isn’t a mistake.”
Voters this fall can select either Padilla or Meusers in each contest. The ultimate winner of the partial term contest will serve as senator through Jan. 3, 2023. The victor in the full-term race will serve from Jan. 3, 2023 through January 2029.
But why is this happening?
Election experts say Padilla’s double-billing stems from the threat of potential legal challenges to California’s practice using appointments to fill vacant U.S. Senate seats.
Lawmakers cited two federal court rulings in cases involving the appointment of senators in Illinois and Arizona, the Los Angeles Times reported last fall. Each suggested California’s practice could be found illegal under the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Times added.
“Courts have said if you’re going to have an election, you can’t just have [an appointed official] occupy the seat forever,” Wesley Hussey, a political science professor at Sacramento State University, told CapRadio this spring. “There has to be a chance for voters to approve or not approve them.”
That concern led to Assembly Bill 1495, which Newsom signed last fall months after appointing Padilla. The bill was authored by Assembly member Marc Berman (D–Palo Alto) and ensures that voters decide whether an official who is appointed to a U.S. Senate seat should serve out the remainder of a term.
Experts say the new law aligns California with the 17th Amendment and should shield it from legal threats.
Padilla addressed the issue earlier this year on Twitter.
“My name will be on the ballot two times, which means you have given me twice the reasons to earn your vote and continue delivering results for the people of California,” Padilla wrote.
Could this scenario have been avoided?
The double dose of election confusion could have been avoided had Newsom immediately called a special election to fill Harris’ seat. But Kim Nalder, a political science professor at Sacramento State, said that would have been costly and likely led to low voter turnout.
Padilla has not faced any high-profile challengers in the two contests, including Meuser. Still, given the divisive state of politics, Nalder surmised that Democrats didn’t want to take any chances that his future in the Senate could hit a snag.
“If there’s a chance to make life difficult for a member of the other party, someone might do that,” she said of a possible legal challenge to the state’s appointment process. “So California wanted to make sure that we don’t have that problem and that things were kind of buttoned up in terms of how we replace a senator who leaves for a different position.”
On ballots in Sacramento County, voters will find the full-term contest first, followed by the partial-term race below.
All active, registered voters in California received a mail ballot for the November election the week of Oct. 10.
For more information on voting in the November election, visit CapRadio’s voter information guide.
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