Terry Schanz makes $17,319 a month as chief of staff in Democratic Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor's Capitol office in Sacramento. That's taxpayer money. And this week, he used his workday to stand outside the Capitol distributing printed flyers and hurling crude sexual insults at an independent journalist who had been asking inconvenient questions about McKinnor's legislation.
The journalist was Nick Shirley. The legislation was AB 2624. And the California Senate had passed it 30-10 the day before.
Shirley has built a following doing the kind of on-the-ground investigative work that legacy outlets stopped doing years ago — specifically, digging into how California spends public money on immigration service providers. AB 2624 is the legislature's response to that work. Critics have nicknamed it the "Stop Nick Shirley Act," and the name requires no explanation. The bill imposes a minimum civil fine of $4,000 on anyone whose conduct — including journalism — runs afoul of its provisions targeting investigations of immigration service organizations receiving public funds. The Assembly passed it 57-19 on May 26. The Senate passed it 30-10 on August 18. It now sits on Gavin Newsom's desk.
On August 19 — the day after the Senate vote — Schanz was outside the Capitol, handing printed flyers to passersby while directing crude sexual insults at Shirley for anyone within earshot. Shirley posted video of the confrontation. It shows Schanz taunting him and distributing materials while Shirley pressed him directly about the legislation. Schanz continued unbothered by the camera rolling.
California State Assembly payroll records dated May 31 confirm Schanz's position and salary. He's the top staffer in a sitting assemblywoman's office, pulling in over $200,000 a year to serve the people of California. Standing outside the Capitol making sexual remarks about a journalist covering his boss's legislation falls outside that job description.
The sequence is worth spelling out. A journalist investigates how public money is being spent on immigration service providers. The state's response is to draft legislation making those investigations punishable by a $4,000 fine. The legislature passes it. And then, the day after the Senate vote, the chief of staff of the assemblywoman who championed the bill goes outside to personally mock the journalist in question — on Capitol grounds, on a workday, with printed materials.
Schanz may argue he was acting on his own time. The Capitol, on a workday, is a particular venue for a personal hobby. When you're the highest-paid staffer in an assemblywoman's office, caught on camera taunting the journalist covering that assemblywoman's signature legislation the day after it cleared the Senate, the location answers the question the alibi tries to raise.
This is the same California legislature that lectures the rest of the country about press freedom and the First Amendment. The same political class that invokes transparency whenever it's convenient and drafts bills like AB 2624 when a man with a camera starts asking where the money goes. AB 2624 creates the legal weapon to punish the exposure. Schanz provided the visual.
The fine for exposing potential fraud: $4,000 minimum. The salary for the man personally celebrating its passage on Capitol grounds: $17,319 a month — paid by the taxpayers he spent his workday mocking.