Court calls Bianco’s ballot seizure ‘unlawful,’ orders them returned

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Hello and welcome back to Capitol Confidential!

It’s Friday, and we’re heading into the final few days of the month. Gov. Gavin Newsom spent most of the week in New York for the annual Climate Week gathering, which runs alongside the United Nations General Assembly. It’s an exciting time for international politics and diplomacy, but an utterly hellish time to try to get around lower Manhattan. As a former NYC resident, I’m really appreciating my California commute right about now – highway snarls and all. 

Here’s what to know going into the weekend. 

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco had no legal right to seize 650,000 ballots earlier this year. 

That’s the highly anticipated decision from the state Supreme Court on Thursday, which also directed Bianco to return the ballots to the registrar, upholding a previous order to do so from Attorney General Rob Bonta. 

As the Chronicle’s Bob Egelko reported, Bianco said he confiscated the ballots in February with a judicial search warrant after a conservative group claimed there had been an overcount of local votes for Proposition 50, the redistricting ballot measure backed by Newsom. 

Bianco was then running for governor as a Republican, but came in fourth behind Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton and Tom Steyer. 

Bonta, a Democrat, immediately ordered Bianco to surrender the ballots and end his investigation, saying local sheriffs must follow the commands of the state’s attorney general. Bianco held onto the ballots, Egelko reported, and reluctantly complied with a state Supreme Court order in April to halt the investigation, but pledged he would resume it if he was victorious in this week’s court case. 

But on Thursday, the state’s high court agreed with Bonta’s directive, cutting off Bianco’s access to the seized ballots and effectively ending his efforts.

The rulings come during a multi-front reckoning over the right to vote in California, and punctuate a month-long effort by Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers to respond to Bianco’s unprecedented ballot seizure.

Democratic lawmakers fast-tracked a bill, SB73 by Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, signed by Newsom ahead of the June primary, which makes it a felony to seize ballots from county elections offices. It also makes it illegal for law enforcement to search or take custody of voter rolls or voting machines without a signed warrant or agreement with election officials – seen as a direct response to Bianco’s seizure. 

A handful of other legislative responses followed. On Saturday, Newsom signed a package of elections-related laws, including two other Cervantes bills that update the state’s Voting Rights Act for the first time in decades. 

He also signed two other laws introduced in the final stretch of the legislative session amid the U.S. Supreme Court battle over Trump’s efforts to restrict mail-in ballots via new rules for the United States Postal Service. 

AB282 by Assembly Member Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, makes it a felony to seize or assist in the seizure of ballots, election records or certified voting technology before election results are certified by the elections official.

SB259, one of former Sen. Aisha Wahab’s last bills before leaving for Congress, makes it a felony for officials to interfere with the delivery or return of a mail ballot, including its delivery to a voter. 

Newsom applauded the state Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday, grouping the ruling together with the recently signed bills as a collection of new protections ensuring “attacks like this cannot happen again.”

The governor was in New York Monday through Thursday this week, making several high-profile appearances and speeches as the city played host to the annual United Nations General Assembly and concurrent New York Climate week. 

The latter is considered the largest international gathering on climate change. 

In a speech at the U.N. special session on climate action on Wednesday, Newsom lambasted the president, positioning California as the antidote to Trump and his policies – and, polishing his international cred ahead of an expected 2028 presidential run. 

As the Chronicle’s Kurtis Alexander reported, Newsom has made tackling planet-warming pollution a priority in his home state and urged the international community not to become jaded by the president’s embrace of the fossil fuel industry. He offered California as an alternative to look to for a responsible future with renewable power.

“We’re the most un-Trump state in the United States of America,” Newsom said. “The fourth largest economy, California, runs every day on two-thirds clean energy.”

Newsom also condemned the president’s General Assembly remarks in which he threatened to "annihilate" Iran, threatened Cuba’s ruling government and pledged to increase American military presence on the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland. 

Leaning into the event’s climate theme, Newsom called Trump an “invasive species” that is threatening progress around the globe and predicted a Democratic victory in November to end Trump’s GOP-majority mandate.

It’s far from the first time Newsom has set foot on the international stage. He’s been a recurring participant in United Nations conferences and summits on the environment and climate change policy. 

The governor also held meetings with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, European Union Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra and German Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider.

Last fall, Newsom attended the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil, while Trump and most federal officials stayed home.

Newsom wasn’t the only California lawmaker in New York this week: Sen. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, spoke at an event held in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly focusing on AI regulations, similarly presenting California’s new regulations as an international model. 

McNerney’s SB813 creates a statewide framework governing how independent AI organizations are formed and requires annual transparency reports from the organizations.

It was part of the AI executive order that Newsom signed last week, which will fast-track its implementation date. 

One of the flashy items in Newsom’s AI executive order was the creation of a working group of experts to consider next steps in regulation options. 

This week, the governor’s office revealed who will make up the group. They’re nearly all professors at some of the nation’s top research universities with experience working in AI policy and regulation in the Obama and Biden administrations. They are:

Newsom’s executive order directs the group to evaluate options to increase AI oversight, including the creation of a “kill switch” or an emergency off control, which could give the government authority to shut down AI models in a potential crisis. 

They have until Nov. 16 to make their recommendations. 

Questions? Thoughts? Interesting tidbits to share? Reach out at [email protected], and follow me on X, @KathrynPlmr.