Huntington Beach voters this year aren’t seeing double. Brian Burley, a Republican, appears twice on voters’ general election ballots.
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Burley, 33, is running for an at-large seat on the Huntington Beach City Council. He is also vying for California’s 42nd Congressional District.
Burley said he is running for Congress because conservatives in his district “needed a responsible elected official to step up and run.” In June, he advanced through the primary election with almost 25.5% of the vote and faces Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, who was first elected in 2022 and is seeking a third term.
And he is running for City Council, too, because of the city’s ongoing budget concerns, Burley said.
“I am our Republican nominee for Congress in the 42nd District, and I take that very seriously. I have campaigned in every city from Avalon, Long Beach, Signal Hill, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana,” Burley said. “Voters deserve the best conservative option, and I look forward to a successful election season.
“I care deeply about my city and I won’t allow it to fail — that’s why I also filed to run for City Council,” he said.
Burley’s dual candidacy may be exposing a loophole in state election law that allows a candidate to appear on the ballot in multiple races, said Justin Levitt, a constitutional and elections law expert who teaches at Loyola Law School.
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said his office has no role “in determining whether he (Burley) could assume both offices” but referred to a section of state law that prohibits public officials from holding two public offices simultaneously if they are “incompatible” with one another.
Under the law, two offices are incompatible if either “may audit, overrule, remove members of, dismiss employees of, or exercise supervisory powers” over the other; if “there is a possibility of a significant clash of duties or loyalties” between the offices; or if “public policy considerations make it improper for one person to hold both offices.”
Huntington Beach City Clerk Lisa Lane Barnes has also questioned Burley’s double candidacy. In an email to Page sent in July, she asked, “Is this legal? Many people are questioning this and asking me for any information I can provide on the matter.”
In response, Page pointed to another section of state law, which in part states that a candidate cannot file nomination papers “for more than one office at the same primary election,” though it says nothing about general elections. According to the city clerk’s website, Burley’s nomination papers for the City Council race were issued on July 15, more than a month after the June 2 primary election. He qualified for the general election ballot for the City Council race on Aug. 7.
There have been recent examples of candidates running in multiple elections in the same year.
In 2024, Republican John Briscoe ran for both an Ocean View School District board seat and the 36th State Senate District. And this year, Armando “Mando” Perez-Serrato is running for both Orange Unified School District trustee and Municipal Water District of Orange County seats.
And this isn’t the first time Burley has run for multiple seats at once, either.
In 2020, Burley ran for both a Huntington Beach City Council post and California’s 48th Congressional District. And in 2022, he ran for the Huntington Beach City Council and for California’s 47th Congressional District.
State officials punt questions
Multiple state agencies would not directly weigh in on whether it is legal for Burley to appear twice on Huntington Beach voters’ ballots, instead pushing the question elsewhere.
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A spokesperson for the California secretary of state’s office said the issue is best posed to the city attorney’s office. The spokesperson also suggested consulting the Fair Political Practices Commission and the attorney general’s office.
Shery Yang, a spokesperson for the FPPC, referred the question back to the secretary of state’s office. And Huntington Beach City Attorney Mike Vigliotta said any legal determination will have to be made by the secretary of state’s office and the courts, not his office.
And when asked, a spokesperson for the California attorney general’s office said: “We are unable to offer legal advice.”
Levitt pointed to a similar issue that arose around the dual candidacy of Rep. Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield. Then a member of the Assembly, Fong had already filed to run for reelection when former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy resigned from his congressional post, creating a vacancy to be filled by a special election.
Fong decided to throw his hat into the ring, but Secretary of State Shirley Weber deemed him ineligible because he had already filed to run for reelection. Fong sued, and a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled in his favor. He ultimately won the special election to Congress. And then in November 2024, Fong appeared on ballots twice: in the regular election for the congressional post and the Assembly seat he had vacated after winning the special election.
Fong’s situation revealed a loophole in state elections law that the legislature attempted to close with Assembly Bill 1784, which was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2024, Levitt said. At the time, state law barred candidates from withdrawing from a race once they declared their candidacy. The measure created an avenue for candidates to do so in the future.
“That may be why you’re not getting a clear answer from the other officials (because) they’re wondering the same thing,” said Levitt, who served the Biden administration as the White House’s first senior policy advisor for democracy and voting rights.
“State officials tried to deal with this problem. The legislature tried to deal with this problem. What I can’t tell you is whether they achieved all that they saw,” he said.
If elected, could Burley legally hold both offices?
“The answer to that isn’t certain, but it’s almost certainly going to be no,” Levitt said. “There are some part-time offices that it’s conceivable where you might be able to hold two part-time offices, but member of Congress is not one of those. … It’s hard for me to understand how (Congress) would be consistent with also holding a local elected office.
“I strongly suspect that he would not be able to serve in both capacities,” Levitt said.
But that situation may not happen; Burley faces an uphill battle in his congressional race against Garcia.
According to the most recent the most recent data available, of the 478,368 registered voters in California’s 42nd Congressional District, 194,264 (40.61%) are Democrats, 144,342 (30.17%) are Republicans and 102,508 (21.43%) are no party preference.
Burley did not answer directly whether he intends to attempt to serve in both capacities if he’s elected by voters for both positions this November. He did, though, point to Huntington Beach’s city charter.
According to city code, any elected officer who accepts or retains any other elected office “shall be deemed thereby to have vacated the office under the City Government.”
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