PARENTAL RIGHT: Sacramento Democrats are intervening more and more in local school Board politics — and their adversaries on the right are loving it. Just look to suburban Southern California, where the conservative board majority in Chino Valley Unified has been savoring its role as a foil to state Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Attorney General Rob Bonta. The new majority there has received public rebukes from both Democrats over the last few months by banning pride flags and, most recently, passing a “forced outing†policy. Bonta’s Justice Department opened an investigation into the latter move on Friday, after warning that the rule — requiring schools to disclose transgender and nonbinary students’ gender identities to parents — may violate students’ legal privacy rights. That investigation is exactly the kind of thing the conservative board wanted, according to Chino Valley Board President Sonja Shaw. “He did us a favor,†Shaw said in an interview. “It also does a favor to parents — all over not just California but the nation — to show them that they don't want parents involved.†Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats have publicly chastised a small handful of conservative school boards over the last few months, targeting firebrand trustees in politically contested regions who scored narrow victories in the fall. But even those limited intercessions have given sidelined Republicans more oxygen than they’re used to. And it has allowed a party on the margins a platform to discuss a key tenant of the GOP’s national strategy heading into 2024: “parental rights.†House Republicans have embedded that language deeply into their messaging, making a big bet by passing a “Parental Bill of Rights†earlier this year that included a rule very similar to Chino’s on transgender students. In the statehouse, Assemblymember Bill Essayli had little chance of getting a hearing for a similar “forced outing†bill — and he didn’t. But the Riverside Republican promised to pursue the rule locally. He enjoyed his first success in Chino, and another board in Murrieta will consider replicating the policy Thursday. Today, he rushed to the board’s defense, pressing Bonta for a legal defense of the investigation in a letter. And he criticized California Department of Education guidance that advises districts to leave it to transgender students to decide when — or whether — to come out to their parents. “As a result of the CDE advice, public schools in California are increasingly implementing illegal, unconstitutional and unethical policies that exclude parents from the affairs of their children,†Essayli wrote. “One of those policies requires the secret transitioning of children of all ages to a new gender identity, complete with new names and pronouns, without notifying parents.†The attention paid to these local issues, of course, may benefit Bonta and Thurmond as they look to rally progressive voters while weighing runs for governor. But for Republicans, it’s an opportunity to frame Sacramento Democrats as infringing on a community’s right to govern itself — tapping into angst over local control in more moderate regions of the deeply blue state. “When you get policies coming out of Sacramento, especially in the area of education … you're now pushing basically left-wing perspectives and left-wing policies into the curriculum, into schools in areas where the values are much more to the right than they are in the Legislature,†Republican strategist Jon Fleischman said of the dynamic. “And you create a natural tension point.†HAPPY MONDAY AFTERNOON! Welcome to California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check of California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to ‎[email protected] or send a shout on Twitter. DMs are open!
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