Newport Beach voters will find a California Supreme Court retention question on their Nov. 3, 2026, ballot. Associate Justice Joshua P. Groban is asking to keep his seat.

Retention elections pose a single question: should the justice continue serving? There is no opposing candidate. A "yes" vote retains Groban; a "no" vote removes him. According to Bolts Magazine, recent retention elections in California have rarely proved contentious, with all justices receiving at least two-thirds of the vote over the last three midterm cycles.

Groban was retained in the November 2022 election with 68.4% of the vote, according to Wikipedia.

Candidate information

  • Name: Joshua P. Groban
  • Office sought: California Supreme Court associate justice (retention)
  • Party: Nonpartisan
  • Born: Aug. 15, 1973
  • Hometown: San Diego, where he attended public schools, according to the Supreme Court of California
  • Education: Bachelor of arts, Stanford University, 1995; juris doctor, Harvard Law School, 1998

Experience and public service

Governor Jerry Brown appointed Groban to the Supreme Court on Nov. 14, 2018, to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Associate Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, according to the California Governor's Office archive. The Commission on Judicial Appointments confirmed him on Dec. 21, 2018. He was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2019.

Before joining the bench, Groban served as senior advisor in the Office of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. from 2011 to 2018. In that role he oversaw the appointment of approximately 600 judges throughout the state, roughly one out of every three judges in California. The governor's office described those appointments as the most diverse in the state's history.

Groban's earlier career included:

  • Law clerk, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, for Judge William C. Conner, 1998–1999
  • Attorney, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, 1999–2005
  • Attorney, Munger, Tolles & Olson, 2005–2010
  • Legal counsel, Jerry Brown for Governor campaign, 2010–2011
  • Lecturer, UCLA School of Law, 2014–2018, according to CalMatters

In private practice, Groban specialized in complex civil litigation with a focus on antitrust, internal investigations and intellectual property, according to the Supreme Court of California.

On the issues

The research packet for this profile did not include issue positions or questionnaire responses from Justice Groban.

Endorsements

No endorsements were supplied for this profile.

Editor's note: This profile was compiled from public records and published sources. No candidate questionnaire responses were available at the time of publication.