This publication explains why California voters are being asked to vote twice on the same U.S. Senate seat in this year’s elections. This publication describes how these two contests will appear on the November 2022 statewide general election ballot and what your options mean.

What you will notice on your ballot

In addition to the other contests on your ballot, you will notice two separate opportunities to vote on the same U.S. Senate seat.

The first contest for the U.S. Senate seat is asking which person you want to be the U.S. senator for the next full term of office. A full term of office for a U.S. senator is six years. The next full term of office will run from January 3, 2023, until January 3, 2029.

The second contest for the U.S. Senate seat is asking which person you want to be the U.S. senator for the rest of the current term of office. The current term of office will end on January 3, 2023. As described in more detail below, this U.S. Senate seat is currently being temporarily held by someone the Governor appointed until the 2022 elections.

Your options for voting on the two U.S. Senate contests

You can vote on either or both of these two U.S. Senate contests. You can vote for the same person in both contests, or you can vote for a different person in each of the contests.

As in any election, you can choose not to vote on any or all contests, including either or both of the two U.S. Senate contests that are on the November 2022 ballot.

The current officeholder, Alex Padilla, is running for both the rest of the current term and for the next full term.

If you vote for Mr. Padilla for the rest of the current term of office, that means you want him to finish the term he started serving in January 2021. If you vote for another candidate for the rest of the current term of office, that means you want Mr. Padilla to stop serving as U.S. senator and for someone else to be the U.S. senator from the time the results of the November 2022 general election are certified, which probably will be sometime in December 2022, until January 3, 2023.

If you vote for Mr. Padilla for the next full term of office, that means you want him to have a full six-year term as U.S. senator following his current time in that role. If you vote for another candidate for the next full term of office , that means you do not want Mr. Padilla to keep serving as U.S. senator beyond his current time in that role and you want someone else as U.S. senator.

Why the contest for the rest of the current U.S. Senate term is on the ballot

You do not need to know all of the details about why the contest for the rest of the current U.S. Senate term is on the ballot in order to cast your vote, but keep reading if you are interested in learning the background.

Vice President Kamala Harris previously held this office, and she began serving as U.S. senator in January 2017. When she became the Vice President of the United States in January 2021, following the November 2020 election, someone else needed to finish the last two years of her U.S. Senate term. California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Mr. Padilla (now Senator Padilla) to serve in that role. At the time, Mr. Padilla had been serving as California’s Secretary of State.  

When Governor Newsom appointed Mr. Padilla to the U.S. Senate seat, California law allowed the Governor to appoint a person to serve the rest of the term, without there having to be an election. Specifically, the law said the vacancy could be filled by the governor’s appointment because the U.S. Senate term would expire on January 3rd following the next general election.

However, California legislators questioned whether this part of California law violated the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. To fix this potential constitutional issue, California Assembly Bill 1495 was passed in September 2021 and became effective on January 1, 2022. The new law, among other things, still allows the governor to appoint someone to fill a vacancy in a U.S. Senate seat, but it makes that appointment temporary, in most situations, until there is a statewide general election to select the person who will hold the office for the rest of the ongoing term. The result of applying the new law to the rest of the term for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Mr. Padilla is that the contest for the rest of that term appeared on the ballot for the statewide primary election on June 7, 2022. The two candidates that received the most votes in the June primary election will be on the ballot for the statewide general election on November 8, 2022, even though the partial term will expire on January 3, 2023, which is less than two months after the general election.