For the second time in as many months, Assemblyman Bill Essayli, R-Corona, has been removed from a major committee assignment.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, earlier this week sent a letter to the chief clerk of the Assembly stating that, effective immediately, he was pulling Essayli from the Assembly Judiciary Committee — which reviews legislation with legal or constitutional ramifications — and placing him on the Assembly Aging and Long-Term Care Committee.

Neither Essayli nor Rivas responded to The Bee’s request for comment by deadline.

But in a series of posts on X about his removal, Essayli accused Democratic leadership of silencing him for fighting for his bill, Assembly Bill 2641, that would lift the restriction on state law enforcement cooperating with federal immigration enforcement officials in cases where the subject of the investigation has been found guilty of a sexual offense against a minor.

“Last week Democrats silenced me for forcing a vote on the Floor to end sanctuary state protections for pedophiles. Today they are punishing me by stripping me of my seat on the Judiciary Committee. I will not be deterred by their threats and intimidation,” Essayli wrote in one post.

“It’s clear from their actions that my Democrat colleagues are more interested in removing me from a committee than they are removing pedophiles from California!” he wrote in another. Essayli was referring to the Democratic-controlled supermajority’s vote against discharging AB 2641 from the Assembly Public Safety Committee, where it had not received a hearing, onto the Assembly floor for a vote from the full body.

Replacing Essayli on the committee is Assemblyman Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin.

In an email statement, Patterson told The Bee, “I’m a fan of House Rules that allow the Republican Leader to choose which caucus members sit on what committees.”

Essayli has also excoriated his Democratic colleagues, at one point labeling Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Santa Clarita, a “pedophile protector” for voting against discharging his bill.

The Republican legislator also went after Rivas on X for removing him from the committee assignment. In response to an X post from Rivas about former President Donald Trump’s felony criminal conviction on 34 counts, Essayli wrote: “Mr. Democracy here removed me from the Judiciary Committee just hours ago. We can all sleep better knowing Democrats are hard at work saving our democracy by jailing their political opponents, removing them from the ballot, and kicking them off committees.”

Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, also publicly criticized Essayli’s removal in a post on X. He wrote that the decision “appears to be retaliation” for Essayli “engaging in passionate discourse over issues in the public interest.”

“I as Republican Leader was not consulted in this change and I condemn it in the strongest terms. We get to vote and people can publicly criticize that vote. It’s not a reason to remove a member from committee,” Gallagher wrote.

Though Rivas’ office did not respond to The Bee’s request for comment by deadline, Rivas spokesman Nick Miller told Politico that “venomous attacks and malignant lies against elected officials may seem innocuous. But in this day and age, they are truly dangerous.”

“The Speaker feels a personal responsibility to improve safety for all Californians, including those who serve, and there is zero tolerance for disinformation assaults against his colleagues, which can do real harm to members and their families,” Miller told Politico.

This marks the second time this year that a testy interaction between Essayli and his Democratic colleagues resulted in Essayli’s ejection from a committee assignment.

In April, after Essayli got into a heated exchange with Assembly Budget Committee Chair Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, he was removed from that committee, according to Politico.

Essayli told Politico afterward that he was a “strong, critical voice in the budget process.”