They Won the Vote. Then They Had to Defend It Themselves.
On September 9, Measure B proponents Laura Hobbs and Richard Gallardo appeared on Kim Yeater’s Take Your Power Back show and described the lawsuit in plain terms: citizens wrote a charter amendment, collected signatures, won at the ballot box, and Sacramento sued them while their own county board stepped aside.
That is the public record. It is also the story they told on air.
What voters passed
Measure B, approved June 2, 2026 with about 55–56 percent of the vote, would amend the Shasta County Charter to require government-issued photo ID, one-day in-person elections, precinct hand counting visible to observers, limited absentee ballots for the infirm, military, and overseas citizens, and locally maintained voter rolls.
Hobbs told Yeater the measure came out of the Shasta Election Task Force after years of asking the Board of Supervisors for election changes and getting nowhere. “They refused. They ignored all of our pleas,” she said. The group then wrote the initiative themselves.
Gallardo said the three problems that drove the draft were dirty voter rolls, 100 percent mail-out ballots, and voting machines with proprietary software the public cannot inspect. Hobbs said they wanted ballots counted where they are cast, with document viewers projecting the count, counting teams starting after the first ballots are cast, and results on election night. They described the absentee rules as a return to the pre-COVID request system, not a ban on every absentee ballot.
The county’s long pattern
The fight did not start after June.
In March 2025, County Counsel Joseph Larmour sued the proponents and asked the court to excuse him from writing the title and summary required before signature gathering. Judge Benjamin L. Hanna refused to rush that request. The Board dropped the case two days later, and counsel issued the summary the law requires.
After the measure qualified, Jennifer Katske sued to keep it off the June ballot. The County took no position. The five proponents—Hobbs, Deidre Holliday, Kari Chilson, Jim Burnett, and Gallardo—intervened. After an appellate stay of an earlier order that threatened to pull the measure, Hanna dismissed the Katske case on March 26, 2026. He held that pre-election challenges are extraordinary and that voters should decide first.
They did. Measure B passed.
On June 16, after Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber sued, the Board voted not to defend the measure. Gallardo tied that decision to an older grievance: in his view, the Board also failed to fight the state during COVID emergency orders. “It’s the board again failing to protect the people,” he said on the show.
What Sacramento did
Days after the primary, the State sued the County, Registrar Clint Curtis, and the five proponents. The State’s public position is that Measure B exceeds a charter county’s authority and is preempted by statewide election law.
On August 7, Hanna granted a preliminary injunction. Implementation is blocked. The November election will be run under existing state rules. The proponents appealed and asked for a stay. The Court of Appeal denied the stay on August 27.
On the show, Gallardo rejected the State’s “disenfranchisement” argument as talking points. He said people can obtain ID, that the DMV offers free IDs for limited-income residents, and that voters who change names or move should notify the registrar the same way they notify a bank or the IRS. Hobbs, speaking as an elections-office analyst, said registrations often stay on the rolls until a voter submits an affidavit; she said she found herself still listed in Chicago more than 30 years after leaving.
Those are their arguments, not findings in Hanna’s injunction ruling. The written ruling said the State has a high likelihood of success and that putting Measure B into effect before a final decision would risk confusion and keep some people eligible under current state law from voting.
What they say happens next
Hobbs told Yeater the next court fight is on the merits, not just the temporary injunction. “This is being funded by the citizens of Shasta County primarily,” she said. She argued citizens cannot wait for someone else to “save them” and have to fight locally.
Gallardo said that even if parts of the measure fall, severability should leave some provisions in the charter, and that the proponents will appeal a total loss. Hobbs added that if federal law later changes—she pointed to the SAVE Act as an example—charter language already on the books could become operative.
On September 9, the same day as the broadcast, the parties filed a stipulated briefing schedule. The court signed it. The State’s motion for judgment on the pleadings is due September 21, responses October 12, reply October 26, hearing November 9 at 8:30 a.m. in Department 63. The same morning, the court will hear the proponents’ attorney-fee motion in the earlier Katske case, which was continued until Measure B’s validity is decided.
Their message to other counties
Hobbs said a small, dedicated group can run a charter-amendment petition and that they will help others. Gallardo said the petition process is similar to a recall once people learn the steps, and that Orange County organizers have told him they are paying close attention to the outcome in Shasta county. Both framed the project as bottom-up government: reclaiming local power one county at a time.
Yeater closed the segment by pointing listeners to VoteforB.com and by arguing that Sacramento is trying to cancel a vote that already happened. Hobbs and Gallardo asked for donations, court watchers, phone calls, and emails to the Board of Supervisors.
The record in one line
A citizen initiative survived a county lawsuit over title and summary, survived a dismissed pre-election challenge, won a majority, and is now frozen by a state lawsuit the County will not defend. Hobbs and Gallardo’s September 9 interview put that sequence in their own words: they wrote what the Board would not, voters passed it, and the people who put it on the ballot are paying for the defense.
The full Take Your Power Back show:
