This week marks the beginning of the 30-day period during which Supreme Court and Court of Appeal justices with expiring terms must file declarations of candidacy if they’re interested in staying on the job past this coming January 1. (See also here and here.) Doing so gets the justices spots on this November’s ballot where the question is a simple “yes” or “no” vote on keeping the justices in office; there are no contested elections for appellate judges in California.
Justices Carol Corrigan and Leondra Kruger are the two Supreme Court members whose terms are expiring. In response to an inquiry, Cathal Conneely, public information officer at the Judicial Council, told At The Lectern that Justice Corrigan has already sent in her candidacy papers and Justice Kruger plans to do so.
Corrigan and Kruger will be the only Supreme Court justices on this year’s ballot, unless a new justice is appointed and confirmed very soon.
[August 20 update: here’s a list of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal justices showing the term expiration date for each. The Secretary of State’s office says that a list of justices who filed their declarations of candidacy will be available within the next 10 days. The Judicial Council’s public affairs office confirmed for At The Lectern that Justice Kruger, as intended, did in fact file her declaration of candidacy.]
