California GOP lawmaker became a culture war lightning rod. Is he getting anything done?

Assemblyman Bill Essayli, R-Corona, has had a busy legislative session.

While he isn’t as successful as other lawmakers in getting legislation through — he has only passed three bills, Assembly Concurrent Resolutions recognizing Ramadan twice and World Cholangiocarcinoma Day once, and none of his bills made it to the Senate by this year’s “House of Origin” deadline — Essayli has demonstrated a mastery of getting attention for his causes.

Whether it’s requiring schools to notify parents if their children go by different names or pronouns at school or ending California sanctuary state protections for people found guilty of sex crimes against a minor, Essayli has a knack for drawing culture war heat. And while that’s earned him relatively few friends in Sacramento, it has made him a minor celebrity on the right, drawing praise on X from figures such as former President Donald Trump cabinet member Richard Grenell.

After this story first published, Essayli’s office released the following statement from the lawmaker:

“I did not come to Sacramento to pass more laws and regulations. I was elected to oppose the radical policies that are wreaking havoc on the lives of hardworking Californians. The job of the minority party is to become the majority party — we don’t get there by passing Democrat-approved bills in a body run by leaders who behave like dictators and silence dissenters. I do not measure my success by how well I am liked in Sacramento.”

Here’s a rundown of some of the controversies Essayli has become embroiled in since being sworn in at the end of 2022.

Parental notification

One of Essayli’s signature issues this session has been the issue of “parental notification” laws, which require schools to notify parents if a child demonstrates gender nonconformity by requesting to go by a different name or pronoun.

Essayli’s Assembly Bill 1314 would have made that policy the law statewide. He introduced the bill in the spring of 2023 to the condemnation of LGBTQ equality groups and lawmakers, who referred to the measure as a “forced outing” bill, because it would force schools to “out” transgender and gender nonconforming children to their parents regardless of whether doing so would endanger their well-being.

However, before the bill could gain any further traction, it was squashed by the Assembly Education Committee Chair Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, who denied the bill a hearing, saying such an event could provide a forum “for increasingly hateful rhetoric targeting LGBTQ youth.”

But Essayli wasn’t done.

He ventured up and down the state of California, rallying conservative-led school boards to pass their own notification policies, from Chino Valley to Rocklin.

He also signed on as an advocate for a proposed ballot initiative that would have not only made parental notification state law, but also would have barred transgender children from gender-segregated facilities, such as bathrooms, and activities, such as girls’ sports, and banned minors from receiving gender-affirming medical treatment.

That initiative failed to get enough signatures to make the November 2024 ballot.

Sanctuary state laws

A former prosecutor, Essayli has made it a priority to fight for legislation, such as his Assembly Bill 2641, to roll back California’s sanctuary state protections — which prohibit state law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials — particularly for convicted sex offenders.

AB 2641 would have removed those sanctuary state protections for people found guilty of sex crimes against minors.

However, the Democratic supermajority-controlled Assembly had little appetite for that legislation, and it withered in the Assembly Public Safety Committee without a hearing.

Essayli attempted to force the matter to debate on the Assembly floor, but the Assembly rejected his motion to discharge the bill from committee for a floor vote, and so the bill is effectively dead.

Essayli, not admitting defeat yet, took to X to castigate his Democratic colleagues, accusing them of standing with pedophiles against children. He even labeled one Assembly Democrat a “pedophile protector.”

This did not go unanswered by the Democratic Assembly Speaker.

Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, ordered Essayli removed from the Assembly Judiciary Committee (he previously stripped Essayli of the committee vice chairmanship in January, according to Law.com). It was actually the second time this year that Rivas stripped Essayli of a high-profile committee assignment. In April, Rivas removed Essayli from the Assembly Budget Committee after he clashed publicly with the committee chair, Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, according to Politico.

Assembly Republicans responded in turn by boycotting the most recent Assembly Judiciary Committee hearing.

Clashes in Sacramento

Essayli has demonstrated little interest in ingratiating himself with either fellow lawmakers or lobbyists.

Since coming to Sacramento in late 2022, Essayli has publicly clashed with lawmakers in both parties, as well as with public interest groups with considerable clout in the Capitol.

After State Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, was arrested for driving under the influence last year, Essayli introduced a bill to ban Assembly lawmakers from driving any state pool vehicle for three years after their conviction. That bill died in the Assembly Rules Committee. When fellow GOP lawmaker Assemblyman Heath Flora, R-Ripon, refused to second the motion, Essayli went after him on X, accusing him of coming to Sacramento “to protect Democrats.”

Flora is the Republican floor leader, the third most-powerful Republican in his caucus.

Essayli also has gone after gun control groups, including Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, for refusing to support his legislation, Assembly Bill 3037, which would have exempted courts from having to dismiss sentencing enhancements leading to longer sentences for certain gun violations.

Essayli called them “fake leftist groups” and “phony organizations,” drawing an outcry from some in those groups.

Other controversies

In one-and-a-half years as an assemblymember, Essayli has adopted a number of other controversial positions.

▪ Essayli has gone on record as saying that he believes children “belong to their parents, not the government.”

▪ He has made a number of false statements about transgender children and their parents.

▪ He unsuccessfully attempted to overturn California’s first-in-the-nation law to allow undocumented residents to access Medi-Cal, the state version of Medicaid.

▪ Essayli defended Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s invocation of secession, and called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to make common cause with Abbott in defying federal authority on the border.

Essayli spokesman Shawn Lewis said that Abbott’s remarks about a compact between the states and the federal government — a hallmark of secessionist rhetoric that was used in several states’ articles of secession in the run-up to the Civil War — was “rooted in the plain text” of the Constitution.