In both Attorney General v. Bianco (see here) and Cervantes v. Bianco (see here), pending cases involving the legality of Riverside County Sheriff and Republican gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco’s seizure of over 600,000 ballots that had been cast in the county at the November 2025 election, the Supreme Court today directed the parties to brief “the effect, if any, of Senate Bill No. 73 (2025-2026 Reg. Sess.) on the issues” in the cases.
SB 73 was signed by Governor Newsom last Wednesday. As summarized by the Legislative Counsel, the new legislation in part “prohibit[s] a peace officer from interfering with the administration of an election,” “prohibit[s] any individual from permitting an agent of a law enforcement agency . . . to access, disrupt, modify, or take possession of rosters, combined rosters, or voter lists unless authorized by a court order or to investigate certain types of voting fraud,” “authorize[s] the Secretary of State, Attorney General, and the appropriate local elections official to bring a civil action against a person, business, or entity that takes a package containing ballots from the custody of an elections official,” and “make[s] it a crime to take a package containing voted ballots out of the custody of an elections official.”
Party briefing in the Attorney General case was completed the day before SB 73 took effect, so the court has ordered supplemental briefing, with simultaneous letter briefs to be filed by June 11 and simultaneous reply briefs to be filed by June 16. In Cervantes, in which briefing is in process, the court directed the parties to address SB 73 “in their forthcoming briefs.”
