Conservatives cheering former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s retirement after 40 years in Congress may want to be careful what they wish for.
The early favorite to succeed the venerable San Francisco Democrat is Scott Wiener, a three-term state senator and former city supervisor who announced his candidacy two weeks ago, before Mrs. Pelosi decided to forgo a reelection bid.
Her announcement Thursday shifted the focus to Mr. Wiener, who may be the most effective state legislator in the nation when it comes to passing left-wing bills on third-rail topics such as transgender inmates in women’s prisons and gender transition procedures for minors.
His record of legislative success has earned him star status on the left as well as the antipathy of the right.
The Human Rights Campaign has praised Mr. Wiener as a “tireless champion of LGBTQ issues.”
No less than billionaire Elon Musk has called him an “utter scumbag.”
“This is the man who’s written 75% of CA’s insane gender, housing, ‘climate,’ crime and transportation laws,” Houman David Hemmati, a Los Angeles ophthalmologist and political commentator, said on X. “Wiener’s a clear and present danger to the state, and his election to Congress would be a clear and present danger to the nation.
“Before you celebrate Pelosi’s retirement from Congress, keep in mind her replacement may be much worse.”
Sophia Lorey, outreach director of the conservative California Family Council, said that Mr. Wiener’s record “represents the most anti-woman, anti-family, and anti-safety agenda I have ever seen from a state legislator.”
“This is the same man who publicly labeled me as part of an ‘LGBT hate group’ simply because I testified to the biological truth that men cannot menstruate,” Ms. Lorey told The Washington Times. “As he now runs for Congress, voters deserve to know his track record.”
Even so, the race may be Mr. Wiener’s to lose.
He received the endorsement Thursday of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who said the state legislator “takes on big, tough issues,” as reported by Politico.
Certainly, Mr. Wiener, a 55-year-old Harvard Law School graduate, isn’t afraid to go where other lawmakers fear to tread. Some of his most hotly disputed bills that have become law include:
• HIV transmission (2017): Senate Bill 239 lowered the penalty for knowingly transmitting HIV to another person from a felony to a misdemeanor.
• Sex offender registry (2019): SB 145 gave judges discretion to decide whether men convicted of having “consensual” gay sex with minors ages 14-17 should be placed on the sex offender registry if they are within 10 years of the minor’s age.
• Transgender inmates (2000): SB 132 required inmates to be housed in a manner “consistent with their gender identity,” allowing males to be incarcerated in women’s prisons.
• Prostitution (2022): SB 357 repealed the law against loitering for the intent to commit prostitution, preventing law enforcement from arresting suspected sex workers based on their appearance, but also making it more difficult to identify and remove minors from traffickers.
• Transgender State of Refuge (2023): SB 107 shielded families seeking gender transition treatment in California from out-of-state prosecution. It also weakened parental rights by allowing courts to take “emergency jurisdiction” of minors. It gave a carve-out for the “taking of a child” from their parents in cases of children seeking “gender-affirming health care,” including mental health care.
• No masks for ICE (2025): SB 627 prohibited federal and local law enforcement, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from wearing “extreme masks.”
Not all of Mr. Wiener’s bills have passed. His 2022 legislation to allow children as young as 12 to receive vaccinations without their parents’ consent passed the Senate but died in the Assembly.
He followed up the transgender refuge bill this year with SB 497, a measure making it more difficult for other states to access California’s health care database.
“The Trump administration is trying to make transgender people the scapegoats for their fascist takeover, and California must stand up to protect them,” he said in a Sept. 11 statement.
On the other side was Kara Dansky, president of the Women’s Declaration International USA, who said Mr. Wiener has “sponsored or co-sponsored just about every CA law that erases/oppresses women and girls and/or harms children.”
“As a state senator, Scott Wiener has acted consistently to destroy the sex-based rights of women and girls and to harm children who are sincerely confused about their sex,” she said in a statement. “His actions include allowing men convicted of violent and sex crimes to be housed in women’s prison cells with women.”
Those concerns are unlikely to resonate with voters in the heavily Democratic 11th Congressional District, where Mr. Wiener’s biggest concern may be a challenge from the left.
His main competition for the seat so far is Saikat Chakrabarti, a former tech engineer with an estimated net worth of $167 million who served as chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat.
In a Thursday video, Mr. Wiener thanked Mrs. Pelosi for her service and said she had done “mountains for our community in San Francisco.” He praised her AIDS advocacy after she won a special congressional election in 1987.
“In 1987, I was a 17-year-old closeted gay teenager in New Jersey,” he said in a video. “I had just admitted to myself that I was gay, and it was scary because there was a mass die-off happening with gay men, and no one seemed to give a s—-.”
He said Mrs. Pelosi was “sticking up for people like me, for kids like me, for gay men like me, and I and so many others will be eternally grateful for her fight, for her leadership.”
