Each candidate for partisan office can state a political party that he or she prefers. Ballots also must feature a disclaimer to voters that candidate's preference does not imply that the candidate is nominated or endorsed by the party or that the party approves of or associates with that candidate. Subsequent "as applied challenges" were struck down by lower courts, and on October 1, 2012, the US Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from Washington Libertarian Party and Washington State Democratic Party. The Washington State Republican Party had earlier dropped out of the appeal process. Both Washington and California implement a two-winner nonpartisan blanket primary by plurality vote. The plan is used in Texas and some other states in special elections but not primaries. A notable example involved former US Senator Phil Gramm, who in 1983 (while a member of the House of Representatives), after switching from the Democratic to the Republican Party, resigned his seat as a Democrat on January 5, ran as a Republican for his own vacancy in a special election held on February 12, and won rather handily. There have also been efforts in Oregon to pass a similar law, but the Oregon Senate rejected it in May 2007 and it failed in a November 2008 referendum as Measure 65. Oregon voters defeated it again in November 2014 as Measure 90, despite a $2.1 million donation from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a $2.75 million donation from former Enron executive John D. Arnold to support it. Maryland has explored a top-two primary, erroneously naming it an open primary, such as in 2019 House Bill 26. Testimony was provided by several organizations, including FairVote and Common Cause, and independent constituents, and included statements about Condorcet systems, proportional representation and single transferable vote, and concerns that a top-two rather than top-three or more primary would not supply adequate choice for voters. Washington, along with California and Alaska, had a blanket primary system that allowed every voter to choose a candidate of any party for each position. That kind of system was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in "California Democratic Party v. Jones" (2000) because it forced political parties to endorse candidates against their will. The Washington State Legislature passed a new primary system in 2004, which would have created a top-two nonpartisan blanket primary system. It provided an open primary as a backup, giving the governor the option to choose. Although Secretary of State Sam Reed advocated the blanket, non-partisan system, on April 1, 2004 the Governor used the line-item veto to activate the Open primary instead.