Where is Ware? UC Santa Barbara professor and gubernatorial candidate fights to stay on California ballot
UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—A University of California, Santa Barbara professor running for governor is facing a major obstacle in his campaign—he may not appear on the ballot at all.
Butch Ware, a history professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and a Green Party candidate, is challenging a court decision that removed him from California’s primary ballot.
Ware, who is campaigning across campus and beyond, says he’s now navigating what he describes as a political system stacked against outsider candidates.
A Sacramento judge recently rejected his bid to remain on the ballot, citing issues with required paperwork—specifically, how Ware submitted five years of tax returns.
The requirement, enforced by the office of Shirley Weber, is a relatively new law intended to increase financial transparency among candidates.
State officials say Ware’s submission included multiple inconsistencies, such as a missing business name, a partial date, and missing values in certain fields. Those issues led to his disqualification.
Ware disputes the state’s findings, arguing that the errors are minor and mischaracterized.
“What they said is that there was a field where I was supposed to blackout my phone number, and I didn’t,” Ware said. “And they said that there was a field where my business name… was over-redacted.”
He maintains that those issues were not present in the original filing and that the core purpose of the law—financial transparency—was fully met.
“The point of the law is financial disclosure—how much I make, where I make it from,” Ware said. “Nothing was being hidden. Nothing was being concealed. This was just a simple pretext.”
Ware also claims that other candidates with similar or more significant filing issues remain on the ballot.
Ware says he plans to appeal the ruling and is preparing to file a federal lawsuit challenging his removal.
If those efforts fail, he says he will continue his campaign as a write-in candidate, urging voters to manually add his name to their ballots.
