Gov. Gavin Newsom and fellow Democratic lawmakers have expressed no contrition for their failed attempt to force President Donald Trump to release five years of tax returns to gain access to the California ballot in the 2020 general election.

The California Supreme Court recently ruled unanimously that Senate Bill 27, signed by Newsom in July, violated the state Constitution. The opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye at times had an incredulous tone, noting that advocates appeared unaware of SB27’s obvious conflict with Proposition 4. That’s a 1972 amendment to the California Constitution easily passed by state voters that requires presidential primaries must be open to all “recognized” candidates.

Further reflecting the state high court’s view that the law was frivolous, the unanimous verdict was delivered just 15 days after justices heard testimony in the case. Court watchers said that was highly unusual.

A federal judge had already ruled the law violated the U.S. Constitution in September. That decision was appealed by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, but the appeal was dropped after the state Supreme Court’s ruling.

Nevertheless, a spokesman for Newsom continued to depict the now-void law as well-intentioned.

Jesse Melgar told the San Francisco Chronicle that the governor “would continue to urge all candidates to voluntarily release their tax returns. … Congress and other states can and should take action to require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns.”

Padilla issued a statement expressing disappointment with the state high court’s decision but also declaring “the movement for greater transparency will endure. The history of our democracy is on the side of more transparency, not less.”

‘Ridiculous’ bill said to reflect ‘arrogance and hypocrisy’

Defenses of the law were scoffed at by opinion writers.

The Sacramento Bee editorial board – which had ripped SB27 as “silly and destructive” when Newsom signed it into law – wrote that the measure  “was so ridiculous and flawed that even California’s justices could barely conceal their disdain.” 

The Southern California Newspaper Group’s editorial noted that the state high court “quoted former Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto of a similar bill in 2017: ‘Today we require tax returns, but what would be next? Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards?’

“Democratic lawmakers and a new governor refused to learn from that message. They tried again and embarrassed themselves. They richly deserved the court’s smackdown.”

The Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that the tax-returns law “accomplished only one thing: giving Trump more ammunition against the state he loves to mock.”

Times columnist George Skelton was the harshest critic of all, noting that many of the Democrats who claimed the moral high ground in backing the tax-returns requirement were not transparent about their own finances.

“This is not about whether Trump should release his federal tax returns,” he wrote. “Rather, it’s about Democrats enacting a blatantly unconstitutional law with a straight face for purely political reasons. It’s about arrogance and hypocrisy.”

Part of SB27 that was reportedly included at Newsom’s behest remains intact. It’s the requirement that gubernatorial candidates provide five years of tax returns to qualify for the ballot beginning with the 2022 election.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. It passed in Senate on a 29-10 vote and in the Assembly on a 57-17 vote in early July.

When Gov. Gavin Newsom got back from his vacation last week, awaiting him was a bill that some see as a principled attempt to force President Donald Trump to be transparent about his personal finances and that others – including California’s last governor – see as partisan meddling that could haunt elections across the nation going forward.

Senate Bill 27 was enrolled and sent to the governor’s office on July 15 after passing the Senate 29-10 and the Assembly 57-17 along party lines. Newsom has until July 30 to act on it. Introduced by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, it would require presidential and gubernatorial candidates to release their most recent five years of tax returns as a prerequisite for appearing on the California ballot.

McGuire and Wiener reject the characterization that it is an attempt to punish Trump, who has famously feuded with California officials via the media and in court since he began his presidential campaign in 2015. Instead, they say it is an attempt to preserve democratic norms by ensuring that voters know about candidates’ financial entanglements before they become U.S. president or governor of the nation’s richest, most populous state.

It’s unclear, however, whether the measure is constitutional. Some attorneys say the Constitution has long enshrined states’ rights, including partial sovereignty, on many fronts. But the U.S. Supreme Court has held that a state cannot add additional qualifications for candidates for federal office. California’s legislative counsel cited this history in a 2017 opinion raising doubts about whether Trump could be compelled to release his taxes as a precondition of getting on the Golden State’s ballot.

Brown vetoed similar bill, cited bad precedent

In vetoing similar legislation in 2017, Brown not only questioned its constitutionality, he worried about the precedent it would set in his veto message.

“Today we require tax returns, but what would be next? Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards? And will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power?” he wrote. California’s enactment would start the U.S. “down a road that well might lead to an ever escalating set of differing state requirements for presidential candidates.”

There is a recent precedent for a state seeking to limit a sitting president’s access to the ballot. In 2011, the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature responded to unsupported, much-ridiculed claims that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia by passing a measure requiring that presidential candidates provide birth certificates before they could be placed on subsequent presidential ballots. The validity of the birth certificates would have been determined by the Arizona secretary of state.

But GOP Gov. Jan Brewer, a former Arizona secretary of state, vetoed the bill. “I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or politically motivated decisions,” she said.

Axios reported last month that lawmakers in 25 states have introduced bills linking ballot eligibility to presidential candidates releasing their tax returns. The Nexis news database shows California to be the only state that has sent such a measure to the governor. The most progress elsewhere appears to be in Rhode Island and Maryland, where the state Senates have given their approval to such legislation.