California Kills Bill Banning Sex Offenders From Running for Office

A bipartisan effort to bar registered sex offenders from seeking public office just died in a Sacramento committee — and the man who killed it is now running for Congress.

Sacramento just sent a message to California voters. It wasn’t the message most parents were hoping for. On June 30, the California Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee killed Assembly Bill 2753 — a measure that would have done something most Americans would consider obvious: prohibit registered sex offenders from running for any state or local office. The bill’s defeat means the current legal vacuum remains in place. In California today, nothing in state law stops a person on the sex offender registry from running for your city council, your school board, or the state legislature. The Daily Caller

The legislation was not a partisan fever dream. AB 2753 had attracted significant support before reaching the Senate, was backed by the Fresno City Council, and passed the full Assembly floor in April. It moved with bipartisan momentum through the lower chamber. Then it hit the Senate Elections Committee — and died. ABC30

What Triggered This Fight in the First Place?

The bill did not emerge from abstract policy debate. It was prompted by Rene Campos, a Fresno resident convicted in 2018 of possession of child sex abuse material, who announced plans to run for a Fresno City Council seat. Campos pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge and became a registered sex offender. His candidacy drew national headlines and immediate backlash from local officials and parents across the region. ABC30

Campos ultimately did not follow through on his campaign, failing to file papers ahead of the deadline this past spring. But the episode exposed something far more alarming than one man’s ambitions: California had no law — none — preventing him or anyone else on the sex offender registry from seeking elected office. San Joaquin Valley Sun

Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria, a Democrat representing Fresno, introduced AB 2753 in February to close that gap permanently.

Who Killed the Bill — and Why?

A registered sex offender in California can currently run for your local school board. The state Senate just decided that’s fine.

The proposal came to a stop in the Senate Elections Committee, where lawmakers argued the bill’s restrictions were too broad. Committee Chairman Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco and current candidate for Congress, cast the deciding “no” vote. Two other Democrats abstained, leaving the bill without the votes it needed to advance. ABC30RedState

Wiener’s rationale was ideological. He claimed California’s sex offender registry was an “extreme and broken” system that unfairly targeted gay men. He proposed limiting any ban to Tier 3 offenders — those required to register for life — rather than the full registry. Soria rejected those amendments, arguing that the legislation should apply more broadly. Wiener then recommended a “no” vote, and the bill died. The Daily CallerSan Joaquin Valley Sun

“For this not to be the law today — where we’re banning people that have committed some of the most horrific crimes against children — I think it’s a disservice.” — Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria

Wiener’s record on this issue is not new. He previously drafted a bill relaxing requirements for sex offenders who were within 10 years of age of the minor they assaulted, and Governor Newsom signed that bill into law in 2020. The Daily Caller

What Does the “Alternative” Bill Actually Protect?

The committee did not leave Sacramento empty-handed. It advanced a separate bill, Assembly Bill 2691, authored by Assemblywoman Dawn Addis. But the version that passed bears little resemblance to the original intent.

AB 2691 bars people from running for office if they have a felony conviction for sexual assault of adult victims. Before the Senate committee advanced the bill, legislators amended it so that certain criminal convictions would not bar individuals from candidacy — including sodomy, oral copulation, or sexual penetration against minors under certain conditions. The Daily Caller

Critics were stunned. Greg Burt, vice president of the California Family Council, testified: “Our honest reaction was that it could not be real. We assume we’ve misread it. We sat in our office and tried to imagine how anyone could stand up and defend it.” The Daily Caller

Addis defended the carve-outs, saying: “We didn’t want to unintentionally wrap in what’s known as Romeo and Juliet kinds of situations into this elections bill.” RedState

That explanation will not satisfy most California parents. The practical result: an amended bill that offers narrow protections while explicitly excluding some crimes committed against children from disqualifying a candidate.

85,000+. That’s the approximate number of registered sex offenders in California [California DOJ data]. The question Sacramento refuses to answer: how many of them can now legally run for your child’s school board?

Is This the Accountability Moment Voters Have Been Waiting For?

If a convicted sex offender can legally run for the school board in California, what does that say about who Sacramento is really protecting?

Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza traveled to Sacramento to testify in favor of AB 2753. He described the outcome as “a gut punch for our community” and said he does not want to see the upheaval Fresno experienced happen again. The bill had united local Democratic and Republican leaders in Fresno in a way that Sacramento routinely fails to replicate. ABC30

Soria herself was composed but firm after the vote. She told reporters she made a promise to her community and that the fight would continue, pledging to bring the bill back in the next legislative session. RedState

That is cold comfort for families right now. In the interim, California’s elected committees have signaled that protecting the ideological preferences of a San Francisco senator matters more than protecting voters from candidates with records of sexual crimes.

What Do Supporters of This Policy Actually Believe?

The question is worth taking seriously: are there legitimate reasons to oppose AB 2753 in its original form?

Some civil liberties advocates argue that blanket bars on candidacy conflict with constitutional principles of civic participation and democratic choice. Civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci, a critic of the bill, argued that “candidacies should be decided by voters rather than restricted by law” and that people should not be barred from running for office, leaving the decision to voters themselves. ABC30

Wiener’s tiered registry argument has a kernel of procedural logic: California’s registry does include some lower-level offenders alongside those convicted of violent crimes against children, and the tiers were designed to reflect differences in severity.

But this counterargument breaks down on contact with reality. The democratic-choice argument assumes voters always have full information — but local races often receive minimal press coverage. Parents sending their children to a school board meeting should not have to independently investigate whether a candidate is a registered sex offender before casting a ballot. The tier argument, meanwhile, ignores that Soria’s bill would have barred even Tier 1 offenders, whose crimes still require registration precisely because the state deemed them serious enough to track. The solution to an imperfect registry is to fix the registry — not to leave the ballot open to everyone on it.

What Happens If No One Speaks Up?

The Fresno case is a preview, not an anomaly. California is a large, diverse state with thousands of local elected seats — city councils, school boards, water districts, hospital boards — that receive almost no scrutiny until a controversy forces the issue. The absence of a law is an open invitation.

The voters who show up to local elections deserve to know that the system has basic safeguards. They do not deserve to find out after an election that their new city councilman was on the sex offender registry. As Soria’s original announcement made clear, there currently exists no law or statute prohibiting registered sex offenders from running for any local or state public office in California. That sentence deserves to be read twice. Los Banos Enterprise

Key Questions This Story Raises:

1. Should voters — rather than the law — bear the entire burden of screening candidates with criminal sex offense records, especially in low-information local races?
2. Why did the Senate Elections Committee advance a version of AB 2691 that explicitly carves out certain sex crimes against children as non-disqualifying?
3. Is Senator Scott Wiener’s opposition to AB 2753 consistent with the priorities he is now presenting to voters as a congressional candidate?

The Question California Cannot Keep Ignoring

Sacramento just told parents, teachers, and civic leaders that the sex offender registry is too complicated to use as a basic bar to public office. It told victims that their abusers’ right to seek power outweighs the public’s right to basic protections. And it told voters in low-profile local races that they are on their own.

Soria has pledged to return with legislation next session. Whether Sacramento will let it pass is another question entirely.

The real question isn’t whether a registered sex offender could run for office in your community. Under California law, right now, they already can. The question is: how long will you wait before demanding your legislators do something about it?

Think this story deserves more attention? Share this article and make your voice heard. Want to stay informed on California accountability issues? Subscribe to The Town Hall News for daily coverage. Want to make your voice count? Contact your state senator directly at www.senate.ca.gov/senators and ask where they stand on AB 2753.