California’s long-running experiment with the top-two primary system is facing pressure, this time from a federal courtroom rather than legislative action or public opinion. A U.S. District Court judge signaled this week that she expects to rule during April on a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by minor political parties challenging the system according to Ballot Access News, a development that places a potentially significant election law dispute on a near-term timeline.

The case, Peace & Freedom Party v. Weber, was filed in late 2024 by several minor parties and associated voters who argue that California’s top-two primary system effectively excludes them from the general election ballot. Under the system, all candidates run in a single primary and only the top two vote-getters advance to November, regardless of party. In practice, minor parties argue, this means they are almost never seen in general elections for major offices.

Judge Maxine Chesney’s brief April 1 filing indicated she expects to rule sometime this month on the state’s motion to dismiss. If denied, the case would move forward into discovery and potentially a trial, extending the legal fight over the primary system.

The timing is awkward for California’s political establishment. The top-two system, adopted by voters in 2010 and used since 2012, is already under renewed political scrutiny because of the possibility that vote-splitting in crowded primaries could produce general elections featuring two candidates from the same party, potentially shutting out the state’s majority party in certain races. That scenario, once treated as theoretical, is now being discussed more openly in political circles and opinion pages.

Still, efforts to repeal or replace top-two have historically struggled to gain traction, in part because the system benefits incumbents and well-funded candidates, and in part because changing it would likely require a legislative effort with the fuel that simply does not exist as of today. The lawsuit therefore represents one of the more direct avenues for opponents of the system, though legal challenges to election structures face a high bar in federal court.

For now, the case sits in a procedural holding pattern, waiting for a ruling that could either end the challenge quietly or give new life to a long-running complaint from California’s political margins. The judge’s expected April decision will not resolve the larger debate over top-two, but it may determine whether that debate moves forward in a courtroom or returns, once again, to the slower and more uncertain field of legislative reform.