California Democrats Just Killed a Bill Banning Sex Offenders From Elected Office. It Passed the Assembly Without a Single No Vote. A Senate Committee They Control Voted It Down Anyway.
Assembly Bill 2753, which would have barred anyone required to register as a sex offender under California Penal Code §290 from holding state or local elective office, passed the full Assembly floor on May 7, 2026 with zero “no” votes. On June 30, 2026, the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee — chaired by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) — held a roll-call vote and killed it. Wiener voted no. Two other Democratic members of the committee abstained, denying the bill the votes it needed to advance.
The bill exists because of Rene Campos, a registered sex offender convicted in a 2018 misdemeanor case involving child sexual abuse material, who announced a candidacy for Fresno City Council District 7 in late February 2026 and held a press conference near an elementary school. Author Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria (D-Merced/Madera/Fresno) called it “unacceptable” that a registered sex offender could run for public office in her own backyard. Her colleagues in the Assembly agreed unanimously. A Senate committee her own party controls did not.
The same committee, on the same day, advanced a narrower companion bill — AB 2691, by Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) — that bars people convicted of felony sexual assault or human trafficking from elective office. But the Senate had already amended that bill, at Wiener’s request, to exempt specific Penal Code subdivisions covering sodomy, oral copulation, and sexual penetration committed against minors. The bill Democrats did pass still carves out some sex crimes against children from the disqualification.
- Zero — "no" votes when AB 2753 passed the full Assembly floor May 7, 2026 · Source: GoldRushCam
- June 30, 2026 — the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee held a roll-call vote and killed AB 2753 · Source: ABC30
- Tier 3 only — the narrower ban Sen. Scott Wiener (D-SF) pushed for instead of the full §290 registry — Soria refused the amendment · Source: California Globe; ABC30
- 20 signatures — the number Rene Campos needed, and failed to gather, to qualify for the Fresno City Council District 7 ballot · Source: KMPH
- 2018 — the year Campos pleaded to a misdemeanor charge involving child sexual abuse material that triggered his §290 registration · Source: ABC30
- Same day — the committee advanced AB 2691 with an exemption for certain minor-victim sex-crime subdivisions, requested by Wiener · Source: California Globe
In late February 2026, Rene Campos, a man required to register as a sex offender under Penal Code §290 following a 2018 misdemeanor conviction involving child sexual abuse material, filed to run for Fresno City Council District 7. He held a press conference near an elementary school to announce his candidacy, telling reporters the election “belongs to the people” and that he had “served his time.” The event prompted a police report and citywide backlash.
Campos ultimately did not appear on the ballot — he failed to gather the 20 valid signatures required by the filing deadline. But by then the damage to public confidence was done: California had no law on the books that would have stopped a registered sex offender from winning a City Council seat had he qualified. Nav Gurm, a rival candidate for the same seat, called the candidacy “a slap in the face to families and children in Fresno.”
Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria (D-Merced/Madera/Fresno) introduced AB 2753 on February 20, 2026, a direct legislative response to the Campos candidacy in her own district. The bill would have barred anyone required to register as a sex offender under §290 from holding state or local elective office in California.
“It’s deeply disturbing that this issue unfolded in my own backyard,” Soria told the Assembly. “The idea that a registered sex offender could run for public office in the City of Fresno is unacceptable.” The Assembly agreed completely: AB 2753 cleared the floor on May 7, 2026 with zero “no” votes, then moved to the Senate, where it was referred to the Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee.
“It's deeply disturbing that this issue unfolded in my own backyard. The idea that a registered sex offender could run for public office in the City of Fresno is unacceptable.”
Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria (D-Merced/Madera/Fresno), Assembly floor debate on AB 2753
AB 2753 did not die quietly. On June 30, 2026, the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee, chaired by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco, SD-11), held an actual roll-call vote — not a quiet death by inaction, but a recorded decision to reject it. Wiener voted no. Two other Democratic members of the committee abstained, which was enough on its own to deny the bill the votes it needed to advance.
Wiener argued the §290 sex-offender registry, as written into the bill, was “overly wide-ranging” — he pushed to narrow the disqualification to only Tier 3 registrants, the registry’s lifetime category reserved for the most serious offenses. Soria refused to amend the bill down to that narrower standard. Wiener then recommended a no vote, and the committee killed it.
Confirmed: the committee held a recorded roll-call vote on June 30, 2026; Sen. Scott Wiener (D-SF) voted no; two additional Democratic members of the committee abstained, which alone denied AB 2753 the votes it needed.
Not confirmed: the identities of those two abstaining members. Local coverage of the hearing did not name them, and the official committee roll call was not published in a form that identified every vote at the time this page was written. We are not printing names we cannot source.
“I'm extremely disappointed, and I feel like I'm still trying to process what we just saw. I think the fight still continues. I made a promise to my community.”
Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria (D-Merced/Madera/Fresno), after the committee vote
Soria has vowed to reintroduce the bill next session. Fresno City Council members who traveled to Sacramento to testify for it were blunt about what the vote meant back home. Nelson Esparza, a Fresno City Council member who testified in support, called the result “a gut punch for our community” and said, “I want to thank Assemblywoman Soria for doing everything she could to deliver a commonsense bill.” Fellow council member Annalisa Perea testified that “this legislation is a commonsense step to ensure that individuals who have committed serious offenses are not placed in positions of public trust.”
The same committee, on the same day it killed AB 2753, advanced a companion measure: AB 2691, authored by Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo), with co-authors Sharon Quirk-Silva (D) and Susan Rubio (D). It bars people with felony convictions for sexual assault (Penal Code §§261, 286, 287, 288, 288.5, 289) and human trafficking (§236.1) from holding elective office.
But on June 24, 2026, the Senate had already amended AB 2691 at Wiener’s request to exempt specific subdivisions of those same penal code sections — ones covering sodomy, oral copulation, and sexual penetration committed against minors — from triggering the office ban. Addis defended the carve-out as protecting so-called “Romeo and Juliet” age-gap situations: “We didn’t want to unintentionally wrap in what’s known as Romeo and Juliet kinds of situations into this elections bill.”
“We didn't want to unintentionally wrap in what's known as Romeo and Juliet kinds of situations into this elections bill.”
Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), on the amended exemption in AB 2691
Chair: Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco, SD-11) — voted no on AB 2753 and requested the minor-victim carve-out in AB 2691.
Party control: Democrats hold a supermajority on the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee, as they do in both chambers of the California Legislature. AB 2753 needed only committee votes to advance to the Senate floor; it did not need a single Republican vote to live or die.
Author of the killed bill: Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria (D-Merced/Madera/Fresno).
Author of the advanced bill with the carve-out: Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), with co-authors Sharon Quirk-Silva (D) and Susan Rubio (D).
Wiener’s push to narrow §290-based disqualifications is not new. In 2019, he authored SB 145, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) in 2020, which created judicial discretion around mandatory sex-offender registration for certain minor-victim statutory offenses where the age gap was close. The same category of minor-victim exemption Wiener carved into SB 145 six years ago is the template for the carve-out now written into AB 2691.
Not every voice in this fight lines up with Soria, Esparza, and Perea. Civil-rights attorney Janice Bellucci, who has represented registered offenders challenging restrictions on their civil rights, argued the decision on candidates like Campos should be left to voters, not statute: “It should be a decision made by the voters, so a person should not be barred from running for office.” That is the opposing argument on the record — not evidence that the committee’s vote was driven by it, since Wiener’s own stated objection was the scope of the registry tiers, not a categorical objection to any ban.
A bill to keep registered sex offenders off California ballots passed the state Assembly without a single dissenting vote. It died in a Senate committee controlled entirely by Democrats, killed by the votes and non-votes of Democrats, chaired by a Democrat who simultaneously secured a carve-out exempting some sex crimes against minors from a separate elective-office ban the same committee did pass. Soria has vowed to bring AB 2753 back next session. Until then, California has no law barring a registered sex offender from holding elected office — the exact gap Rene Campos’s Fresno candidacy exposed five months earlier.
Last updated July 1, 2026