Save Girls’ Sports organizer to challenge Dawn Addis for state Assembly seat
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- Republican Shannon Kessler announces 2026 bid for California Assembly District 30.
- Kessler campaigns on deregulation, school choice, housing reform and energy policy.
- Local activism and business ownership shape Kessler’s opposition to incumbent Dawn Addis.
The woman who founded the local Save Girls Sports campaign will challenge Dawn Addis for her seat in the state Assembly next year.
Shannon Kessler, an Arroyo Grande resident, parent, small business owner and founder of Save Girls’ Sports Central Coast, a group that advocates against the participation of transgender student athletes in girls’ sports and locker rooms, announced her run for California Assembly District 30 in 2026 in a news release Monday.
Addis, a Democrat, was initially elected to the District 30 seat in 2022 and re-elected in 2024. She represents portions of San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
The SLO County Republican Party announced Kessler’s campaign against the incumbent, according to the news release.
Kessler is running on four main platforms: advocacy for future homeowners, school choice for parents, reducing regulations on local businesses and opposing renewable energy in the form of offshore wind farms.
“I feel that we need different people in our government, because I don’t feel that average Americans are being well represented, particularly here on the Central Coast, by our current representatives,” Kessler told the Tribune. “I wanted to go beyond local and serve at the state level because it seems to me and many other parents that there’s just a relentless push of a very leftist ideology from our state Assembly.”
Arroyo Grande resident runs for state Assembly
Kessler currently serves on the SLO County Republican Central Committee. In the past, she has served on the Arroyo Grande Parks and Recreation Commission and currently serves on the Pismo Coast Association of Realtors, Local Government Relations Committee and the Multiple Listing Service committee, she told The Tribune.
She also has a local government and public policy certificate from the Pepperdine School of Public Policy and is a licensed real estate broker and co-owner of Kessler Construction, a family-run business with her husband and son, the release said.
Though she has not held office in the past, Kessler sees her experience as a California citizen and business owner as more valuable experience than being a career politician.
“Part of the problem we’re in right now is because we do have lifelong bureaucrats in office who many of whom have not even owned a business, so they don’t experience the effects of their own policies.” Kessler said. “... I’ve operated two small businesses and served in many different levels of jobs in my life, and I feel like I have a boots-on-the-ground perspective as to what it feels like to live in California.”
Kessler sees her engagement with the Arroyo Grande community as one of her top qualifiers for office.
She has been increasingly involved in speaking at school board, city council and SLO County Board of Supervisors meetings for several years, she said. Most recently, her advocacy has been focused on “the girls’ right to fairness and sports issue,” she said.
Save Girls Sports, a local group that aims to “protect girls and women from boys and men (biological males) in their sports, locker rooms, and private spaces,” according to the group’s Facebook page, was founded by Kessler and has recently been active at local school board meetings discussing trans student rights in Lucia Mar and Paso Robles.
Kessler is also a founder of a local organization called Culture Impact, a ministry of Harvest Church, the news release said. The group sent political questionnaires to SLO County candidates during the 2024 election asking their stances’ on topics like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.
In the release, Kessler referred to Culture Impact as a group that “teaches Constitution classes and empowers citizens to vote, self-educate, run for office, and speak up at school board meetings and city council.” Harvest Church was not included in the description of the group in the release.
New candidate running on platform of housing, education and energy
Kessler’s platform focuses on housing, parental eduction choice, deregulation of businesses and opposing offshore wind farms.
Kessler positions herself as a “very strong proponent of private property rights.”
She pushed the need to deregulate housing development and applauded Gov. Gavin Newsom for rolling back the California Environmental Quality Act.
“We’ve had 8 million people come into our nation illegally, and they’re pushing on the need for homes as well,” she told The Tribune. “You particularly feel it here in California. Housing is too expensive, rent is too expensive, so if we could deregulate, even open up some land to developers and make it take a perhaps six months to a year to build something rather than four years of lawsuits, we could really open up housing.”
She is also a strong advocate for family choice on where parents send their kids to school while still receiving state funding, be it charter, private, public or home school.
“I believe that parents, not bureaucrats, should be making the decisions in their children’s education,” she said. “I see what I believe happening from our state government as an indoctrination, rather than education.”
Kessler is anti-offshore wind, and called the effort an “environmental boondoggle,” and “the high speed rail of the ocean.”
She described projects proposed in SLO County like offshore wind farms and battery plants as “harmful,” and “industrial greenwashing.”
“I have a deep concern for the fact that we may move away from a very efficient form of energy, such as Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant,” she said. “I support its continued operation, and I support looking into traditional natural gas and oil drilling, because these are known and reliable sources of energy.”
This story was originally published July 29, 2025 at 3:11 PM.
