Court of Appeal Denies CA AG Bonta’s Improperly Filed Effort to Fast-Track Invalidation of Shasta County’s Voter-Approved Election Integrity Measure

Citizens Locked in Legal Battle Against Their Own Government to Restore Election Integrity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – (June 25, 2026) REDDING, CALIF. –  The California Court of Appeals for the Third Appellate District today denied the State of California’s petition to invalidate Shasta County’s voter-approved election integrity measure, Measure B. The court declined to exercise its original jurisdiction “to review the challenged measure at this time” and directed the State to seek any expedited relief in the Shasta County Superior Court in the first instance.

“This is the third time Measure B’s opponents have dragged us into court to stop Measure B — and the third time they have failed,” said attorney Alexander H. Haberbush, lead counsel for the proponents.

“Rather than file in the Shasta County Superior Court — the court closest to the dispute and to the community it affects — Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber ran straight to an appellate court in Sacramento, demanding that the voters’ measure be struck down on an expedited schedule of the State’s own choosing, without a trial and without full briefing,” explained Haberbush, founder of The Lex Rex Institute, “The Court of Appeal refused and pointed the State to the very forum it had tried to skip — and it did so even though the County, which would ordinarily defend such a suit, had filed a statement of non opposition to the writ.”

In 2025, Shasta County Counsel sued to keep the citizen-qualified measure off the ballot, only to dismiss the case after its ex parte application was denied. Then a private opponent sought to block the measure before the June election, and the Superior Court rejected that attempt. Voters approved Measure B on June 2, 2026 by greater than 55-percent. Finally, before the results were even certified, AG Bonta sued to invalidate the measure. 

The Court of Appeal reached the same conclusion the Superior Court had already reached months ago: this dispute belongs in the trial court and AG Bonta should have respected that.

“The State’s case rests on the claim that a charter county has no authority over its own elections — and it gets there by stretching a 1994 decision that had nothing to do with elections,” Haberbush added. “Defending charter-county authority is what the County should be doing. While we applaud this ruling, it is particularly disappointing that the County chose not to oppose the writ. At a minimum, it should have defended the authority of Shasta County’s own Superior Court to hear the case in the first instance — the very result the Court of Appeal reached today.”

The court’s denial was issued without prejudice, and it did not address the validity of Measure B. Under the order, the State may return to the Court of Appeal only after it has sought expedited relief in the trial court and the trial court has failed to act in a timely manner. The proponents — Laura Hobbs, Deidre Holliday, Kari Chilson, Jim Burnett, and Richard Gallardo, represented by the Lex Rex Institute — say they are prepared to defend the voters’ measure in that forum, as they have in every forum before it.

Support the Defense of Measure B

The legal defense of Measure B — a vital election-integrity measure approved by the voters of Shasta County — is ongoing. Members of the public who wish to help defend the voters’ decision can contribute to the defense here: VoteForB.com

Media Contact

For additional information or to interview Alexander H. Haberbush, Esq., contact Alex Bostic at ABostic@LexRex.org

 

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