{"id":209200,"date":"2026-03-07T16:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T16:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/209200\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T16:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T16:50:19","slug":"sex-offender-rene-campos-fails-to-get-20-signatures-needed-to-run-for-fresno-city-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/209200\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex offender Rene Campos fails to get 20 signatures needed to run for Fresno City Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sex offender who launched a controversial bid for Fresno City Council failed to get the 20 signatures needed<\/a> to make the ballot, marking an embarrassing exit for the much-reviled campaign.<\/p>\n

Rene Campos requested his candidacy paperwork Friday for a place on the ballot and took the oath of office, calling it \u201ca powerful moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But an elections official said Campos hadn\u2019t yet delivered the signatures required for him to enter the race \u2014 and he was nowhere to be seen at the Friday deadline.<\/p>\n

Rene Campos was running for Fresno City Council. California DOJ<\/p>\n

In a statement, Campos copped to his inability to secure the 20 signatures.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the people of Fresno. Today I was unable to obtain the required nomination signatures before the filing deadline, and I will not appear on the ballot for the Fresno City Council District 7 race,\u201d he said, according to to Fox 26<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis campaign was a fight. There were attacks, pressure, and moments when standing up meant standing completely alone. But I stood anyway. I fought anyway. Again and again \u2014 because the Constitution is not defended when it is easy, it is defended when someone is willing to stand in the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rene Campos speaks to the media.<\/p>\n

Campos raised eyebrows when he announced that he would run for political office last month, despite a past charge of possession of child sex abuse material in 2018.<\/p>\n

Last week, an elementary school in Fresno filed a police report after he held a press conference just steps away from the grounds.<\/p>\n

Until 2015, California law prohibited registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school or park in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was his 15 minutes of fame,\u201d AJ Rassamni, a candidate for the District 7 seat, told ABC 30<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s a victory for the people of Fresno,\u201d said another candidate, Nav Gurm.<\/p>\n

Photo of Campos, who failed to get enough signatures to be on the ballot.<\/p>\n

A third candidate, Ariana Martinez, added: \u201cWe will continue to stand against any kind of sexual predator.\u201d<\/p>\n

California Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria, who introduced legislation aimed at banning sex offenders from running for office after Campos announced his campaign, celebrated him dropping out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are relieved to learn that a registered sex offender is no longer running for Fresno City Council. No other community should have to go through this,\u201d she told Fox 26<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why this news changes nothing in our plans to amend AB 2753 to ensure a registered sex offender is ineligible to run for public office.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sex offender who launched a controversial bid for Fresno City Council failed to get the 20 signatures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[7,1610,989,112,114,113,4182,23734,3586],"class_list":["post-209200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-california","tag-city-council","tag-elections","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-metro","tag-sex-offenders","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209200","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=209200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}