Rudolph “Butch” Ware, an associate professor of history at UC Santa Barbara who wants to be governor, argued that Weber’s office inappropriately disqualified him even after he filed the necessary tax documents. He also claimed the 2019 state law requiring gubernatorial candidates to submit five years of tax returns to qualify for the ballot is unconstitutional.

Ware said that while he tried to meet the March 6 filing deadline, he received “contradictory and confusing messages” from Weber’s office asking him repeatedly to correct “deficiencies,” such as mismatched returns and inappropriately redacted names. That, he said, led him to believe that Weber was “arbitrarily establishing thresholds … to meet and hurdles to jump” to disqualify him.

His attorneys argued in court Thursday that he fixed those errors, and there was a complete set of correct, matching tax returns for all five years among the various filings he submitted.