On October 25, the California State Court of Appeals, 2nd district, reversed the trial court and issued an opinion protecting the rights of initiatives. Starr v Chaparro, B307585. Here is the opinion.

Proponents of term limits for the city of Oxnard had submitted an initiative petition. The city refused to put it on the March 3, 2020 ballot, even though it had enough valid signatures. When the city had received the initiative petition, it instead passed the contents of that initiative as an ordinance. This was a hypocritical move, because the city did not favor that particular initiative. Then the city also put their own measure on the ballot, which altered the initiative in a manner that the proponents did not favor. Because there was then only one measure concerning city term limits on the ballot, the voters passed the measure that the city wanted, which automatically cancelled out the ordinance.

The state court ruled that the initiative had a right to be on the ballot, and said the city must put it on a future ballot sometime during the next six months. In California, when a ballot measure passes, it cannot be repealed or altered without another vote of the people (unless the ballot measure specifically makes an exception to that general rule).