Nonprofit vows to fight proposed California ban on sex offenders in public office

Liliana Fannin, The Fresno Bee on Mar 4, 2026

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An advocacy group is threatening to file a lawsuit challenging a proposal to ban registered sex offenders from running for public office in California with the intent to block a Fresno City Council candidate’s campaign.

Spurred by the crowded District 7 race that includes Rene Campos, a registered sex offender, Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria said she will amend an existing bill, AB 2753, to include language prohibiting any registered sex offender in California from running for state or local office. Five Fresno City Council members also said last week they would push for local legislation to ban registered sex offenders from serving on the council.

Attorney Janice Bellucci, executive director of the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws Inc. (ACSOL), said the state already has laws in place that set certain restrictions for registered sex offenders, such as being prohibited from entering a school without prior written permission. The Sacramento-based nonprofit advocates for the constitutional rights of individuals required to register as sex offenders and their families through litigation, education and legislative reform.

“I think it’s really important for the public to know that most of the people on a sex offender registry do not pose a current risk of danger,” Bellucci said. “They just don’t. Most of them have paid their debt to society. They’ve gone to prison or gone to jail, and they’ve been through a sex offender treatment program.”

Currently, no law or statute in California prohibits registered sex offenders from running for any local or state public office.

Campos held a press conference last week to respond to Fresno council members’ plan to block him from serving on the council, which he described as “institutional overreach.”

Campos faced backlash for hosting the news conference across the street from an elementary school in Downtown Fresno, and the school filed a police report against him.

Fresno Councilmember Annalisa Perea said she was “deeply troubled” by Campos’s decision to host a press event near a school.

“Leadership requires sound judgment, respect for the law, and an unwavering commitment to protecting our community. When someone seeking office demonstrates the opposite, we have a duty to speak out with a clear message: those who have committed serious offenses against our children and continue to disregard legal boundaries should not be placed in positions of public authority,” she said in a statement.

Bellucci said she spoke to Campos after the news conference and told him that he did not violate any law because he was across the street from the school, and not on the actual campus.

Bellucci also told Campos that if a law is passed that would prohibit him from running for office, her nonprofit would legally challenge any law of that nature in court.

“As a human being, not as an attorney, I think that the citizens of Fresno should feel ashamed of themselves for bullying somebody like Mr. Campos,” Bellucci said.

In 2021, Campos, 41, pleaded no contest to a 2018 misdemeanor charge of possession of child pornography and served two years of formal probation.

Campos told The Bee he has accepted the court’s judgment, fulfilled his requirements and continues to follow the law.

“When a court imposes a sentence and a person fulfills that sentence, the law has established the standard. If meeting that standard does not carry meaning, then people will inevitably ask whether rehabilitation is real or simply theoretical,” Campos said.

ACSOL recently filed a lawsuit against Fresno County over a recent ordinance that limits any halfway house with a registered sex offender to no more than six beds, arguing the law is preempted by state law.

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