On Monday, a Ninth Circuit panel held oral argument in a case challenging the constitutionality of Washington state’s top two primary. According to this AP report, the judges were skeptical that a top two primary that did not give parties the option of rejecting a candidate’s use of the party’s name would violate the associational rights of political parties. California’s most recent open primary initiative did give parties the right to reject the use of their labels on the ballot. [Disclosure: I was on the legal team drafting and defending that measure]. The measure went down to defeat, but some of the litigation arising out of the measure continues. On March 8, the California Supreme Court will decide whether a lower court erred in allowing a competing measure regulating political parties to appear on the ballot. That measure combined both regulation of primaries and an unrelated measure about the sale of surplus state property. The lower court held that the combining of the two measures violated the separate vote requirement of California’s constitution (something similar to, but not necessarily identical to, a single subject requirement). But the lower court’s remedy split the measure and placed both parts on the ballot separately, thereby placing on the ballots two measures neither one of which necessarily would have gained majority support in the legislature.