Press Release: Butch Ware Demands Federal Court Restores His Place on the Ballot

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California fast-tracks Ware v. Weber on an expedited emergency briefing schedule. Dr. Butch Ware, a 2024 Vice Presidential candidate, tenured UCSB professor, and widely recognized 2026 candidate for Governor of California, has demanded a Temporary Restraining Order returning his name to the printed primary ballot.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, APRIL 30, 2026. The Butch Ware for Governor 2026 campaign has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit and an emergency motion in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, demanding that Senior District Judge William B. Shubb issue a Temporary Restraining Order restoring Dr. Butch Ware to the gubernatorial primary ballot. Filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal civil-rights statute, the case alleges that the California Secretary of State's disqualification of Dr. Ware over alleged tax-return paperwork defects violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

The lawsuit, captioned Ware v. Weber and assigned Case No. 2:26-cv-01643 WBS SCR, names California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber as defendant in her official capacity. Lead counsel is James E. Tyrrell III of Dickinson Wright PLLC in Washington, D.C., joined by Eric R. McDonough of the firm's San Diego office as local counsel.

THE FEDERAL COURT IS TREATING THIS AS AN EMERGENCY

Within 48 hours of the campaign's filing, the Court issued a briefing order placing Ware v. Weber on an expedited emergency schedule. The Secretary of State's opposition is due May 4, 2026, seven days after filing rather than the customary twenty-one. The campaign's reply is due May 6. The Court will then take the motion under submission and rule, with the earliest possible ruling date May 6 and the latest realistic date around May 12.

The schedule reflects a federal court moving as quickly as it can while still affording the State an opportunity to be heard. May 4 is also the day, under California Elections Code § 3001, that county election officials must begin mailing vote-by-mail ballots for the June 2 primary. The Court's pace is the clock against the state's own.

THE THIRD FRONT IN A COORDINATED DEFENSE

This federal lawsuit is the third front in the campaign's coordinated legal defense against the Secretary of State's mid-March disqualification. The first track is a state appeal carried by Tawfiq Jawhari, currently pending before the California Court of Appeal. The second is a private-citizen voter-disenfranchisement complaint led by Anna Capati of the National Lawyers Guild, San Diego. Each front addresses a distinct legal injury arising from the same set of facts. The federal action carries the U.S. Constitutional claims that the state proceedings could not reach.

A WIDELY RECOGNIZED CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR

Under the California Constitution and federal civil-rights law, the question of whether a person is a recognized candidate for office is one for the voters and the public, not for an administrative office armed with paperwork technicalities. Dr. Butch Ware is the Green Party of California's official 2026 nominee. He served as the 2024 Green Party Vice Presidential nominee on the ticket with Dr. Jill Stein. He is a tenured professor of African and Islamic history at UC Santa Barbara. He has received public endorsements from Nina Turner, Angelica Ross, Cornel West, and other progressive organizers and elected officials. The Secretary of State herself has published Dr. Ware's name on the public list of 61 gubernatorial candidates and posted his tax submissions online. By any honest measure of recognition, Dr. Ware is the kind of candidate the Constitution requires the State to place on the ballot.

A LANDMARK CIVIL-RIGHTS CASE

The complaint advances three constitutional claims, all under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: First and Fourteenth Amendment ballot-access violation under the Anderson-Burdick framework; Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process; and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection. The campaign argues that the Secretary of State's office issued shifting and contradictory deficiency notices about Dr. Ware's tax-return submissions over a ten-day window in March, culminating in a final notice at 4:50 p.m. on the March 16 statutory deadline that demanded cure by 5:00 p.m., a ten-minute window. Of the 61 candidates appearing on the gubernatorial primary ballot, several have tax submissions with the same alleged deficiencies the Secretary cited against Dr. Ware. They were not disqualified.

The campaign's experience is itself the proof that California Elections Code §§ 8902 and 8903, the gubernatorial tax-return-disclosure law that Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in July 2019 as part of Senate Bill 27, cannot be administered fairly. The statute was unilateral in its drafting and selective in its application. What was sold as a principled disclosure rule has operated, in our case, as an administrative weapon used to thin the gubernatorial field.

A STATUTE WITH A TWIN ALREADY STRUCK DOWN

This case is the first major federal challenge to the gubernatorial half of Senate Bill 27, the 2019 California statute requiring both presidential and gubernatorial primary candidates to disclose five years of federal tax returns as a condition of ballot access. The presidential half was struck down unanimously by the California Supreme Court in Patterson v. Padilla in November 2019, in litigation responding to a federal challenge originally brought by Donald J. Trump. The Court held, in language that speaks directly to this case:

"Ultimately, it is the voters who must decide whether the refusal of a [presidential primary candidate] to make such information available to the public will have consequences at the ballot box." California Supreme Court, Patterson v. Padilla, 9 Cal.5th 1, 19 (2019)

The gubernatorial half, identical in design, has remained on the books, untested, for seven years. Ware v. Weber carries that same constitutional question into the federal courts. A ruling in Dr. Ware's favor would complete the constitutional reckoning that Patterson began and would foreclose any future use of §§ 8902 and 8903 against gubernatorial candidates of any party.

"Voters have a right to choose between every candidate the Constitution makes eligible. The Secretary of State does not get to thin that field through arbitrary procedural traps. This case is about every Californian who believes ballot access should not depend on whether a candidate can navigate a ten-minute deadline." Dr. Butch Ware, Candidate for Governor

WHAT COMES NEXT

Counsel will file the campaign's reply on May 6 in response to the Secretary of State's opposition. Judge Shubb is expected to rule on the Temporary Restraining Order on or shortly after that date. The campaign will issue a public statement immediately following the Court's ruling. The merits track of the case continues regardless of the TRO outcome, with an Initial Scheduling Conference set for September 8, 2026. A federal declaratory judgment striking down §§ 8902 and 8903 would carry forward into every future California gubernatorial cycle.

ABOUT BUTCH WARE FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR 2026

Dr. Rudolph “Butch” Ware is running for Governor of California with the Green Party. He is a longtime organizer and movement builder, and is a tenured professor of African and Islamic history at University of California, Santa Barbara. He ran as the Vice Presidential candidate alongside Jill Stein in the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. His campaign is fully grassroots and does not accept corporate or super PAC donations. His platform includes guaranteed affordable housing, single payer healthcare, free community and state colleges for California residents, fully funded and expanded public transit, and more.