{"id":199279,"date":"2026-03-01T12:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199279\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T12:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:40:17","slug":"ca-registered-sex-offender-wont-drop-out-of-city-council-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/199279\/","title":{"rendered":"CA registered sex offender won\u2019t drop out of city council race"},"content":{"rendered":"

City Council candidate Rene Campos, a registered sex offender, said he will not drop out of the race after some Fresno council members announced a plan to pass legislation to block him from serving on the council.<\/p>\n

Councilmembers Annalisa Perea, Miguel Arias, Nelson Esparza and Nick Richardson said they plan to work on future legislation<\/a> at the city and state level that would limit a registered sex offender\u2019s ability to serve as a city councilmember, which is currently allowed under state law.<\/p>\n

Campos told reporters Friday afternoon he felt personally attacked by the council members and described their proposal as \u201cinstitutional overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe right to seek public office does not depend on whether these in power approve you,\u201d Campos said at a press conference near Fresno City Hall. \u201cWhen government officials publicly discuss how to block a single candidate from appearing before voters, that\u2019s not policy debate; this is institutional overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Registration for a sexual offense does not generally disqualify a person from running for office, but it does come with restrictions, including prohibitions on entering schools and unsupervised contact with minors under California\u2019s Megan\u2019s Law.<\/p>\n

The City Council primary race gained national attention this month after The Bee reported on Campos<\/a>, who plans to run for the District 7 council seat representing Old Fig Garden and other east-central and southeast Fresno neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

If the City Council makes any effort to block his eligibility to hold a council seat, Campos said he would \u201cabsolutely will seek any legal, available option available to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campos said he reached out to councilmembers in attempts to meet with them prior to Thursday, when they announced their effort to block his eligibility to serve.<\/p>\n

Fresno City Council President Mike Karabassi told The Bee Friday he had not heard from Campos.<\/p>\n

Campos said he has accepted the responsibility for his past and completed every requirement of the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am no danger to anyone,\u201d he said. \u201cI put everything out there, every detail I can to make people feel that I have been transparent every single way. Nobody does this in government. Nobody comes out from the very beginning and says \u2018hey, I f—– up, and now I\u2019m back to help this city.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Campos said his focus going forward is on the constituents of District 7 and his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy is the strongest when it trusts its voters,\u201d Campos said. \u201cIf we abandon that principle, we abandon the foundation of this republic. The election belongs to the people of District 7 and no one else.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published February 27, 2026 at 6:36 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council candidate Rene Campos, a registered sex offender, said he will not drop out of the race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[92663,38812,112,8019,114,113,85383,85382],"class_list":["post-199279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-california-sex-offender","tag-district-7","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-city-council","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-registered-sex-offender","tag-rene-campos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}