McDonough

—The petitioners in this proceeding are four registered voters and taxpayers in Santa Clara County. All are either present or retired employees of the City of San Jose, and two are residents and voters in San Jose. Petitioners seek an order overturning the superior court’s denial of their mandate petition challenging the ballot title and ballot question for Measure B, which is to be placed on the ballot for the June 5, 2012 election. Petitioners contend that both the current ballot title, “PENSION REFORM,” and the ballot question are impermissibly partisan and misleading.

Real parties in interest are the City of San Jose (City), the city council (which adopted the ballot question and title), the city clerk (sued in his official capacity), and the Registrar of Voters for Santa Clara County (sued in his official capacity).

Recognizing the urgency of the matter, we issued a Palma notice (Palma v. U.S. Industrial Fasteners, Inc. (1984) 36 Cal.3d 171, 180 [ 203 Cal.Rptr. 626 , 681 P.2d 893 ]), advising the parties that this court was considering issuing a peremptory writ of mandate in the first instance. 1 We prohibited the submission of the ballot title and question to the…