In record short meeting, Shasta County Board of Supervisors votes unanimously to oppose Prop. 50, the ‘Election Rigging Response Act’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom

California Gov. Gavin Newsom certainly has his faults, but behaving like a shrinking violet isn’t one of them. For the past several months, the potential 2028 Democratic Party presidential candidate has been trolling and triggering President Donald Trump and his MAGA minions on social media with caustic doses of their own rhetoric.

Consider the title Newsom came up with for Proposition 50, “The Election Rigging Response Act,” his attempt to counter gerrymandering efforts in Texas and other red states in advance of next year’s mid-term elections. It hasn’t been Democrats clamoring about rigged elections for the past decade, and Republicans have been quick to react to the taste of their own medicine.

Shasta County District 1 Supervisor and Board Chair Kevin Crye, an obedient MAGA Republican, has done his part, crafting a resolution opposing Prop. 50 that was passed unanimously by the Board at Tuesday’s meeting.

There was scant discussion of the resolution, which was included with eight other items in the consent calendar. If Prop. 50 passes Nov. 4, it could lead to California Democrats gaining five seats in the House of Representatives in the Nov. 2026 midterm elections, countering the five red seats Texas anticipates adding with their gerrymandering efforts.

The Board’s resolution implies that Prop. 50 violates Prop. 11, the Voter’s First Act passed in in 2008, because it transfers the authority to draw congressional districts from the voter-approved California Citizens Redistricting Commission to the Legislature. If passed, Prop. 50 will divide communities and diminish their voices in Congress, the resolution states. Finally, the resolution complains that the special election for Prop. 50 will cost $200 million at a time when the state is facing a significant budget deficit.

The resolution ignores the fact that voters have a say in the matter and would have to approve granting temporary redistricting power to the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority before it could it go into effect. The newly drawn lines would stay in effect until 2030, when the next scheduled redistricting takes place. Democratic candidates would be more competitive with the new maps, but victory in the midterms is by no means guaranteed.

While “preserving rural culture” isn’t mentioned in the resolution, Chair Crye has made it his rallying cry against Prop. 50.

“A lot of people, you’ll see some of the signs around town or other places, it talks about fair elections,” Crye said. “What I really deem it as is if Prop. 50 passes is it’s the death of rural counties. … It’s a very nonpartisan thing for me, but again, make no mistake, if Prop. 50 passes it is the death of rural counties.”

The current congressional map, including Shasta County in Dist. 1.

The proposed Prop. 50 congressional map, including Shasta County in Dist. 2.

In fact, as shown in the above maps of the old and proposed congressional districts, if Prop. 50 passes, Shasta County will remain in a rural congressional district, namely Congressional Dist. 2. As seen on the proposed new map, the long finger of Dist. 2 juts down the sparsely populated north coast and includes most of Marin County, which is 85 percent rural.

So Shasta County will remain rural if Prop. 50 passes. What will change is the county’s political representation in Congress. Dist. 2 has been held by Democrat Jared Huffman since 2013. Huffman is literally the polar opposite to Shasta County’s current congressional representative, Dist. 1 Republican Doug LaMalfa.

Huffman is committed to making our communities resilient to the effects of climate change, including wildfires and droughts. LaMalfa is a climate change denier. Huffman founded Congressional Freethought Caucus, which he co-chairs, to promote sound public policy based on reason, science and moral values. LaMalfa apparently believes the moon landings were a hoax. Huffman has protected the secular character of government. LaMalfa has advocated for Christian nationalism.

Huffman lives in the Democratic stronghold of San Rafael which has around 61,000 residents—about 30,000 smaller than Redding’s 93,000 residents. Voters in the North Coast towns of Arcata and Eureka trend to the left, but there’s also a stubborn rural conservative streak in the Emerald Triangle. If Prop. 50 passes, Republicans will have to choose their candidate carefully to gain the seat, but it’s not an impossible task.

Public speaker Susan Weiss.

In other elections-related news, several public speakers voiced their concerns with newly selected ROV Clint Curtis after it was revealed that Curtis lied to reporters last week when he said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber had approved the changes he’s instituting in Shasta County’s election system. In fact, the secretary of state did no such thing. Curtis didn’t contact them at all. That didn’t sit well with Susan Weiss.

“I’ve been coming here for two years, and every time I hear the preacher and minister saying, ‘please give us wisdom, please give the Board of Supervisors wisdom,’ ” Weiss said. “Then I see what’s happening at the ROV office, and I guess I’m here to slap hands! I don’t know how else to say it, to have Clint Curtis in that position is so disturbing.”

Weiss recited recent developments in Curtis’s short tenure as ROV: the firing of former assistant ROV Joanne Francescut in May, the alleged hiring of election deniers who’ve been tormenting elections staff for five years, his call to have Francescut and former ROV Tom Toller indicted on unspecified charges, and his lie about clearing his prototype election system with the secretary of state.

“I don’t understand all that, but what I do know is for the first time ever in my long, long years, I don’t believe my election’s going to be fair,” Weiss continued. “And now I’m the one that’s going to be coming here you saying, ‘Do something about our elections.’ This is disgusting. I’m so angry about this to think that you would let this happen and cause more division and more grief and more anger in our county. So unwise. You need to start listening to your preachers.”

Brad Garbutt

Former Shasta County Elections Commission member Brad Garbutt laid the blame for Curtis at Chair Crye’s feet.

“Kevin, I would recommend you contact the secretary of state,” Garbutt said. “Make sure that any changes that he’s made meet her approval. With any luck, election laws were broken. It’s all on you. You search the entire country, and out of 340 million Americans, this is the best guy to run our elections. So it’s all on you.”

Laura Hobbs.

Several members of the local election denier contingent were on hand, including Dan Ladd and Laura Hobbs. Still glowing from gathering more than 10,000 signatures for a ballot initiative that if passed by voters will require voter ID and hand counting election results in one day with limited mail in voting, Hobbs, citing elections code 9310, suggested the Board could incorporate the initiative into the county charter as soon as the signatures are verified.

“So, you can either adopt it immediately during that meeting or within 10 days after this is presented to you,” Hobbs said helpfully. “And I wanted to give this to you as an option, because at this point, you could actually get the credit for all the hard work of the citizens who actually search circulated this petition.”

There’s a hitch, of course: the voter ID one-day, hand-counting, no-mail-in-ballots voting initiative is contradicted by state and federal law. Charter counties cannot enact measures that violate the California state and/or the U.S. Constitutions, and this initiative almost certainly violates both.

Shasta County Counsel Joe Larmour tried to warn Hobbs & Co. when he refused to write the ballot summary for the initiative earlier this year. Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Hanna ruled that Larmour, by law, had to write the summary, but that doesn’t make the initiative legal.

Our election deniers are in for a rude awakening if their measure is passed by voters next November.

Clocking in at less than one hour, Tuesday’s Board meeting was the shortest of the year so far.

SCOREBOARD

Board Matters

R1 Receive an update from the County Executive Officer on County issues and consider action on specific legislation related to Shasta County’s legislative platform and receive Supervisors’ reports on countywide issues.

No Additional General Fund Impact
No Vote

CLOSED SESSION

There was no action to report from closes session.

R2 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL – EXISTING LITIGATION

(Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(1)):

Name of Case: National Prescription Opiate Litigation, U.S. District Court Case No. 1:17-md- 02804-DAP

R3 CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS

(Government Code Section 54957.6):

Agency Negotiators:
County Executive Officer David Rickert
Personnel Director Monica Fugitt
Chief Labor Negotiator Gage Dungy, Liebert Cassidy Whitmore

Employee Organizations:
Professional Peace Officers Association

At the conclusion of the Closed Session, reportable action, if any, will be reported in Open Session.

CONSENT CALENDAR

The Board voted 5-0 to approve the following Consent Calendar items.

Board of Supervisors

C1 Approve a letter which requests that the California Health and Human Services Agency submit an application on behalf of all rural counties in California to secure funding from the Rural Health Transformation Program and authorize the County Executive Officer, or their designee, to submit revised letters on the Board’s behalf so long as changes do not substantially alter its intent or affect the Board’s position (Sponsored by Supervisor Crye).