Judge doubles down on November election for Newport Beach ballot measures
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Orange County Superior Court Judge Julianne Bancroft issued an emergency court order on Wednesday compelling Newport Beach to schedule a trio of embattled ballot initiatives for the Nov. 3 election.
Bancroft doubled down on her previous order, issued Aug. 27, that charged the Newport Beach City Council had “abused its discretion” when it tried to punt the charter amendment measures to the Nov. 7, 2028 election.
This week’s ruling directs city officials to take all necessary steps to hold a general municipal election on ballot initiatives “whether run directly by the city or through a consolidated election process.”
Speaking on behalf of the O.C. Registrar of Voters, county counsel rejected consolidating three Newport Beach charter amendment ballot measures on the November statewide election.
Charles Klobe, president of Still Protecting Our Newport, welcomed the judge’s decision as a supporter of the ballot initiatives on term limits, single-member district elections and transparency policies going before Newport Beach voters sooner, rather than later.
“I applaud the judge’s ruling, which I believe is based on the merits of the arguments and not politics,” he said. “Our position is: let the people vote. The city can hold a general municipal election on its own. They will have to bear the cost of it, unfortunately, but they brought that on themselves.”
The cost of a city-administered election for the ballot measures could tally up to $1.2 million, according to a range of estimates.
Newport Beach has appealed Bancroft’s latest ruling.
“The court’s order presents a conflict with state law and city charter requirements governing election consolidation, as the Orange County Registrar of Voters previously determined that the initiatives cannot be added to the county-administered November ballot,” said Georgia Rios, city spokesperson in an email. “The city has filed an appeal and is asking the Court of Appeal to immediately stay the order until after its consideration of the appeal.”
Speaking on behalf of the Registrar, county counsel Leon Page sent a letter last week to attorneys for both the city and ballot proponents that ruled out the possibility of its involvement in consolidating the election as the deadline had passed.
Registrar Bob Page pointed to that letter in offering no comment on Bancroft’s latest ruling.
An appellate court previously rejected an appeal filed by the city last month after Bancroft ruled that the Newport Beach Stewardship Assn. and former mayor Marshall “Duffy” Duffield, who are ballot proponents, properly published legal notices in a newspaper of record and substantially complied with requirements to qualify the measures on the ballot.
Bancroft warned this week that if the city appealed the decision in her courtroom, it would cause “irreparable harm” to the ballot proponents and would not have the effect of pausing her directive.
Eight individuals have qualified to run for four open Newport City Council seats. The field includes four incumbents seeking reelection as the city faces key debates about its future.
In a declaration filed Tuesday, City Clerk Lena Shumway, as Newport Beach’s elections official, outlined the challenges the city would face without the county’s help.
“If the county, with all of these resources already in place, has determined that adding the three measures at this point would jeopardize the election process, the city will face insurmountable obstacles in attempting to establish and conduct an entirely separate election from the ground up,” she said in court documents.
Shumway added that, based on her review, Newport Beach has not run an election on its own in 44 years, when a charter amendment pushed for consolidated elections.
The city, she said, does not have the election equipment, pool of trained poll workers and ballot-processing operations needed to administer the election in November.
Bancroft ruled that Newport Beach should run the election for the ballot measures despite Shumway’s declaration.
Klobe sees Newport Beach’s decision to appeal as just another in a series of foot-dragging delay tactics.
“I am supremely disappointed that the city has decided to spend further money and time with the court to stop the people from voting,” he said. “What is the City Council majority afraid of? Why put up such a fight to stop these things from being on the November 2026 ballot?”
The next Newport Beach City Council meeting is on Sept. 8, after the Labor Day weekend. Whether an appellate court weighs in on the ballot measure battle before then remains to be seen.
