HUGE Appellate Win for Election Integrity!

Appellate WIN in Shasta County is a WIN for California voters!

The California Court of Appeal just delivered an important victory for our clients in Shasta County – and a major win for election integrity across California.

But first, you need to understand why this case matters to you.

Last year, five local citizens – Laura Hobbs, Deidre Holliday, Kari Chilson, Jim Burnett, and Richard Gallardo – exercised one of the most fundamental rights in our constitutional system: the right of the people to legislate directly through the initiative process.

They drafted an election integrity initiative, gathered more than 10,000 signatures, and qualified the measure for the June 2 ballot.

A year ago, Shasta County filed a lawsuit attempting to block the initiative entirely. Alexander Haberbush of the Lex Rex Institute stepped in and forced the County to dismiss that case.

Then, just weeks ago, a new lawsuit was filed by an anonymous plaintiff to block the initiative.

This time, the County did something even worse.

Instead of defending the voters’ right to decide the issue themselves, county officials formally took “no position” – abandoning the voters entirely.

So, the Lex Rex Institute took up the call again.

Because the County refused to defend the people’s right to vote on their own initiative, we stepped in to do it for them.

When a local judge issued an order that would have resulted in wholesale removal of the measure from the upcoming ballot, we rushed to the Court of Appeal.

Yesterday – less than 72 hours after we requested intervention – the appellate court granted our request.  This is relief rarely granted – to less than 10% of applicants! – and we are extremely grateful that the Court of Appeal was so diligent and timely in its decision.

Thanks to the Lex Rex Institute’s tireless efforts, the courts have stopped the attempt to silence the voters — at least for now.

But this case is far from over.

Time is short, and the courts must still decide whether the initiative will appear on the June 2 ballot.

If you believe the people — not Sacramento bureaucrats — should control our elections, please consider supporting this effort today.

The outcome of this lawsuit could determine whether counties across California are free to even attempt to adopt commonsense election transparency measures such as:

• precinct-level hand counting with publicly posted results

• bipartisan counting teams

• open observation of ballot counting

• voter identification requirements

• local auditing and maintenance of voter rolls

• citizen participation in the counting process

These are questions that should be decided by voters, not buried by procedural maneuvering or abandoned by government officials unwilling to defend the public. If we lose, county governments will continue shutting down citizen initiatives. But if we win, we open the floodgates—giving citizens across the state the power to secure their own polls instead of waiting helplessly for only Sacramento to save them.

These legal battles are expensive and time-sensitive. We cannot win without your help. 

Briefing will continue over the coming weeks as we fight to ensure that the voters of Shasta County are allowed to decide this issue for themselves.

Shasta needs our help. In this battle for rights Californians hold so dearly, the entire state needs Shasta to win. We need Shasta to win.

Donate now to join the fight.