Appeal court pauses Shasta judge’s ruling in election ballot measure case
Election staffer Laura Hobbs has successfully appealed a temporary restraining order, allowing a controversial ballot measure she helped champion to move forward. If approved by Shasta voters, the measure would amend the county’s charter to implement local election practices that would violate state and national law.
Late yesterday, the Shasta Elections Office issued information about ballot Measure B, a proposed amendment to Shasta County’s charter that’s slated to appear on Shasta ballots this June.
The measure, which the press release referred to by the title, “Local Election Transparency and Security Reform,” will ask voters if they wish to implement a series of changes to local election law including instituting one-day voting, hand counting, Voter ID, limited absentee ballots and locally-controlled voter rolls.
Information about Measure B was shared by the county after a ruling from the Third Appellate District court was issued earlier yesterday. That ruling paused the decision of a Shasta judge last week to temporarily stop the county from expending funds on the ballot measure until at least April 10.
Measure B is controversial because if implemented, the proposed election policies would violate a number of state and national election laws. A similar but more limited ballot measure was passed by voters in Huntington Beach last fall, but did not withstand a legal challenge by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The earlier temporary restraining order related to the ballot measure was put in place as the result of a challenge to the ballot measure in court last month. The ruling to restrain the county from moving forward on the ballot measure was appealed by Shasta election staffer Laura Hobbs and other proponents behind the ballot measure.
While ballot proponents were not named as a party of interest in the original legal filing in the case, they were able to successfully intervene in the case to pause the earlier ruling, allowing ballots to be prepared while the case moves forward.
Here’s what led up to the appeal
On Feb. 17, Shasta taxpayer Jennifer Katske filed a challenge to the ballot measure in Shasta Superior Court, originally under the pseudonym “Jane Doe.” In her filing, Katske told the court that placing the measure on ballots would lead to irreparable harm in the form of wasted taxpayer dollars because of the likelihood that it will be shot down for legal reasons, even if passed by voters.
On Feb. 25, Shasta County Superior Judge Benjamin Hanna ruled issued a temporary restraining order, telling Shasta County not to expend additional county resources on the ballot measure at least until he considers the matter further in a hearing on April 10.
What does yesterday’s ruling mean for the primary election?
The ruling yesterday pauses Hanna’s earlier decision that stalled the process, allowing the county to move forward with placing Measure B on ballots — which will need to go to the printer next month. The decision was issued by Third Appellate District Judges Elena J. Duarte, Shama Mesiwala and Aimee A. Feinberg who noted that the ruling to pause the temporary restraining order “expresses no opinion on the validity of the initiative in question.”
In other words, whether Measure B is valid has not yet been determined by the courts.
The next hearing in the case will be held on March 25 at 8:30 a.m. in Dept. 64 of the Shasta County Superior Court.
3.6.2026 4:01 p.m.: We have updated the story to include the date and time of the next hearing in the case.
Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org
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Clint Curtis is the new face of MAGA election lies and Trumpism, who’s now communicating with Trump’s DOJ and his follow election conspiracist Peter Ticktin. In fact, he asked the SCBOS to pay for Ticken, who, along with Mr. Pillow, defended criminal Tina Peters, convicted of serious election law crimes, to defend against the Jane Doe case for the clearly illegal Measure B, which Cutris and his employee, Hobbs, are desperately trying to make law.
But except for Crye, who prays with Mr. Pilloew (on the taxpayers’ dime), who said he wasn’t opposed to the county kicking in some taxpayer money for Clint’s Hobbs case, the supervisors voted… no. No money for Clint, or for Hobbs.
And surprisingly, the Jane Doe case is not on the supervisors aganda for next week! Good riddance, indeed. But hopefully, the case and the illegal Measure B will be shut down on March 25 when they all go before Judge Hanna.
Are the taxpayers done flushing hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ money down the MAGA conspiracy theory propaganda toilet?
Thank you for your attention to this matter… 😉
Number #9, Number #9, Number #9 (9 x 365 = 3285 DAZE) Wow!!!
Oh please, by all means, let lawyers, and Sacramento completely take over this county and voting and literally anything else. I pray there is some lawsuit I can jump on against them too
I am thoroughly disgusted by the unproven claims of election fraud at every level in our country. It is clear that the trump administration is attempting to manipulate voting access to give them an unfair advantage in upcoming elections. The fact that there is a local move to illegally change the way we vote in Shasta County is repellent to me. It is a great convenience to receive my ballot in the mail and deposit it in a dropbox. This lame 78 YO person would find it uncomfortable in the extreme to have to stand in a long line in order to vote or re-register! There is no evidence that this will make a difference or correct prior improper voting.
They hope you and thousands like you and me will not want to stand in that long line and just skip voting altogether. They believe voters voting means they lose. They have a dozen or more things on their wish list to suppress voting.
It would be nice if you had mentioned exactly what laws would be broken state or federal. And what the additional expenditures would have been.
We’re working on a story laying that out in more detail. But we did address this in prior coverage, briefly. https://shastascout.org/legal-petition-filed-over-election-ballot-initiative-that-could-amend-shasta-countys-charter/
If we were to add up the costs that the election deniers have accrued for the Shasta County taxpayers, we would be horrified. Wasted time, wasted money, wasted good will. All to support our MAGA conspiracy theorists. Next, we will sue airlines for “chemtrails”.
Do we know if there will be any more arguments before the court, any witnesses, discovery or dispositions?
Thanks for the good job reporting.
Rick: Working on getting that out to you all!
So anyone can file a lawsuit that makes whatever they are opposing to be legal? Where does this end, if passed? Can I file a lawsuit allowing me to murder someone just because I don’t like them? This is a very slippery slope to anarchy, chaos and lawlessness. Can hardly wait…
If this makes it on the ballot and passes, then implemented, I will be the first to sue Shasta County. If anyone wants to join me, we can file a class-action lawsuit!
Sir, the short answer is yes. You, or anyone else, can file a lawsuit over anything at all. Pay the fees and knock yourself out. Doesn’t mean you will get very far —just ask Ms. Hobbs. But there is the chance of being ruled a vexatious litigant as I hope she will be.
Just wanting to thank you for your brief and yet informative “paper”. I don’t receive local television programing and would otherwise have to resort to navigation of sorting through excessive amounts of on-line postings in hopes of finding the local facts rather than opinions.
P.S. Are you related to Dr Pierce at Hilltop Medical Clinic? I spent a few years there prior to Dignity Health taking over. I hope it doesn’t loose its “Community” feel.
Anyway, Keep up the good work.