Dear CalMatters reader,

First thing on April 1, then-Assemblymember Bill Essayli was arguing for his bill to ban transgender students from playing on girls’ sports teams.     

The bill failed in committee. But later that day, Essayli announced he was resigning his seat to take an appointment as U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.

In short order the website for Assembly District 63 substituted his image with the message: “Member Vacant.”

In the resignation message Essayli posted on X, he touted his culture war fights in the overwhelmingly Democratic Assembly, which no doubt helped position him for the new job as President Donald Trump remakes the federal judiciary.

“When I joined the Assembly, parental rights, illegal immigration, and voter ID were peripheral issues; we’ve made them centerpieces of our Party,” Essayli wrote.

Essayli’s sudden departure, just months after he won re-election for his Temecula district, will trigger a special election this year. Gov. Gavin Newsom has 14 days after the vacancy to call a special election, which must be held 126 to 140 days after that proclamation. That means it could be held mid-August at the earliest, or as late as early September.

The race will start with a special primary, followed by a special general election if no candidate gets a majority of the vote. State officials have not announced dates for those elections.

The day after he stepped down, Essayli endorsed Lake Elsinore Councilmember Natasha Johnson to succeed him.

“I’ve selected Natasha because I know that she is a fighter and she will carry on my message and the battles that we’ve had in Sacramento,” Essayli said in an Instagram post.

Johnson, who has served on the Lake Elsinore City Council since 2012, could not be reached for comment, but said in a separate post that she plans to run on public safety, parental rights, homelessness and rising costs in California.

Democrat Chris Shoults, a high school English teacher who challenged Essayli in November, plans to run in the special election on such “kitchen table issues” as jobs and cost of living, he said, adding that he thinks he’ll have the upper hand in the current political climate. Shoults pointed out that Democrats elsewhere in the country have performed better in recent special elections than in last year’s general election. 

Republicans hold a six-point advantage in the district, with nearly 39% of registered voters. Nearly 33% are registered as Democratic, 21% list no party preference and the remainder are registered with third parties. 

Essayli won by more than 14 points in November, but Shoults and his supporters hope some of those voters will switch sides as the stock market falls and prices soar amid Trump’s trade war.

“As the opposition’s policies continue to affect people, I think that the registration numbers won’t mean as much as it might have in other elections, because everyone is affected,” said Joy Silver, chair of the Riverside County Democratic Party.

Since his election in 2022, Essayli has played the contrarian in the Assembly, introducing bills on hot button topics that had little chance of passage, often to make a point. 

Last year he proposed repealing healthcare to undocumented immigrants, aiming to start a discussion about funding priorities.

More recently he inserted himself in the debate over reparations by promoting a bill that competes with a similar measure by the California Legislative Black Caucus, then leaving the legislation in limbo when he stepped down last week.

While those topics likely paved the way to Essayli’s federal prosecutor appointment, Shoults thinks they’ll make Riverside County voters ready for change. 

“National-level culture war issues were his priority,” Shoults said. “So we feel like we can do better than him, and better than his handpicked successor. We’ve always been on topic about cost of living being a top priority, whether the cost of eggs or gas, protecting veterans, getting control of development like warehouses, public health, environment and public safety.”

California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones introduced a bill that would disqualify convicted killers and violent sex offenders from receiving early releases at age 50, under the state’s elderly parole program.

The bill is called “Mary-Bella’s Law,”  named after two Inland Empire survivors who were raped as children in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Their rapists, Cody Woodson Klemp, now 68, of Moreno Valley and Charles William Mix, now 69, of Fontana, qualified for early release under the program but were denied parole.

It’s Jones’ second attempt to close the loophole; a similar bill in 2021 was rejected in the Public Safety Committee.

“Survivors and their families should never have to live in fear that their attacker could walk free long before serving their full sentence,” Jones said at a press conference Tuesday, shortly before a hearing on the bill before the Senate Public Safety Committee. “Nor should they be forced to relive their trauma by repeatedly fighting to keep their perpetrators behind bars.” 

The mother of a 14-year-old girl who was knocked unconscious by a larger male student during a fight at the Jehue Middle School on March 10 said she wants to advocate for policy changes to prevent similar violent episodes, Black Voice News reported.

“My daughter’s story is not the only one, and that is heartbreaking truth. What happened to her should never happen to anyone,” said Christal Britton.

Rev. Samuel J. Casey, executive director of Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, thanked the San Bernardino County District Attorney for dropping charges against both students and said what happened to the girl was “a reflection of the broader systemic injustices” against Black children and their families.

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