Pretty much everyone -- including but not limited to Earl Warren to Stanley Mosk -- thought that California didn't allow one person to run for two different offices at the same election.
But the Court of Appeal decides today that that's wrong; that one person can, indeed, run for multiple offices if s/he so decides. Potentially -- as perhaps likely here -- winning all of them.
Justice Earl admits that this view of the statute might lead to absurd result, including but not limited to the following hypotheticals: "For example, a party candidate could run for every California congressional seat at the same time. Or one very popular candidate could conceivably run for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Controller, and Treasurer at the same election, win them all, and then resign from all but the Governor’s office and appoint their friends to other statewide offices.”
But Justice Earl holds that that's an issue for the Legislature, not the courts. The Court of Appeal holds that the existing statute -- Section 8003 -- only bars candidates from running for multiple offices in the same election if they're running as independents, not if they're running (as here) in a primary election. (As for "why the Legislature would have adopted a prohibition on dual candidacy but applied it only to independent candidates,” the Court of Appeal simply responds: "Perhaps it was an oversight, or perhaps the Legislature was simply focused on limitations on the independent nomination process when it enacted section 8003. But if it was an oversight, it is the Legislature’s job to correct it, not ours.")
I seriously hope that someone famous takes up the hypothetical and runs for every single office in California in the next general election: every congressional seat, Governor, every statewide office, etc. And wins.
It'd be a hoot.
The Rock, maybe?
