San Diego county clerk Ernest Dronenburg has dropped his legal challenge to revive Proposition 8, California's now-ended constitutional amendment which limited marriage to heterosexual couples.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Dronenburg released a statement on Friday saying that his bid was unnecessary because it duplicated ongoing legal efforts to reinstate the ban.

Proposition 8 tumbled after the Supreme Court ruled that interveners lacked standing to defend the law, leaving in place a 2010 circuit court ruling declaring it unconstitutional.

Within days after the Supreme Court ruled, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted its stay in the ruling, allowing same-sex marriages to resume in California. On June 28, Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris, both Democrats, ordered clerks in all 58 counties to resume issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

Dronenburg had argued that the ruling only applied to the two counties where plaintiffs live, not the entire state.

Protect Marriage, the group that sponsored the 2008 amendment, had made similar arguments in its filing before the state Supreme Court.

Dronenburg's action had failed to attract support from other county clerks, despite the urging of gay marriage opponents who assured clerks that they would be legally protected.