Maggy Krell
Maggy Rose Krell | |
|---|---|
| File:Maggy Krell 2025.jpg | |
| Member of the California State Assembly from the 6th district | |
| Assumed office December 2, 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Kevin McCarty |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1978 (age 47–48) |
| Party | Democratic |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | UC Davis School of Law (J.D.), University of California, San Diego |
| Occupation | Politician, Prosecutor, Attorney |
Maggy Krell is an American lawyer, prosecutor, and politician currently serving in the California State Assembly. She is a Democrat representing the 6th district, encompassing the majority of the city of Sacramento and surrounding unincorporated communities. Before successfully running for the Assembly, Krell served as a Deputy Attorney General and Special Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting high profile cases throughout California.[1] She also served as Chief Legal Counsel for Planned Parenthood California where she led the organization’s national litigation efforts.[2]
Legal career
[edit | edit source]Krell received her Juris Doctor from the University of California, Davis School of Law in 2003, and started her career as a deputy district attorney for San Joaquin County, in Stockton, California. She subsequently moved to the California Department of Justice where she prosecuted a wide variety of cases, including cold case murders, white collar crime, and multi-jurisdictional cases. She was promoted to Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and led California’s Special Prosecution Unit.[3]
In that role, Krell distinguished herself as both a prosecutor of human traffickers and an advocate for survivors. She led the successful prosecution of executives of Backpage.com, at the time the largest online sex trafficking platform in the world,[4] which resulted in the site being shut down in 2018.[5] Krell described her work against the site in her 2022 book Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker: A Prosecutor’s Story.[6] The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children honored Krell with a career achievement award for her work on the Backpage case.[7] As an advocate for survivors, Krell helped secure the early release of a sex-trafficking survivor who had been imprisoned as a teenager for crimes stemming from her victimization.[8] Krell has been outspoken about the need for better treatment of victims by the criminal justice system.[9]
In 2018, Krell joined Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California as their Chief Legal Counsel, seeking to help combat efforts by the Trump Administration to cut funding and curtail access to low-cost reproductive healthcare. In that role, she filed an amicus brief defending a California law that sought to reduce targeted dissemination of misinformation about reproductive healthcare from a suit that was being heard by the Supreme Court.[2] She also defended access to federal family planning funds by seeking an injunction under the federal government’s Title X Rule.[10]
After the Trump Administration began a policy of separating families arrested for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, Krell served as a volunteer lawyer, helping to reunite separated parents and children, and worked to challenge the federal government’s policy through legal action.[11]
Political career
[edit | edit source]Krell won election to the California State Assembly in 2024 on a platform promising to prioritize public safety, protect access to reproductive healthcare, address high prices and homelessness, and improve programs benefiting vulnerable youth.[12][13] She had previously run for Sacramento County District Attorney in 2014 and lost to Anne Marie Schubert.[14] In 2024, Krell won her primary by a more than 10-point margin in a large field that included six other Democrats.[15] She focused her general election campaign on a ballot measure in Nevada to enshrine access to abortion as a right in the state constitution, bussing dozens of volunteers from Sacramento to Reno to campaign.[16][17] Krell secured 66% of the vote[18] and Nevada’s constitutional initiative also passed.[19] Upon taking office, Krell introduced legislation to protect Californians' access to medication abortion.[20]
Electoral history
[edit | edit source]| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anne Marie Schubert | 106,448 | 58.0 | |
| Maggy Krell | 59,231 | 32.3 | |
| Todd David Leras | 17,404 | 9.5 | |
| Write-in | 486 | 0.3 | |
| Total votes | 183,569 | 100.0 | |
| Primary election | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
| Democratic | Maggy Krell | 25,875 | 25.0 | |
| Republican | Nikki Ellis | 15,108 | 14.6 | |
| Republican | Preston Romero | 14,505 | 14.0 | |
| Democratic | Paula Villescaz | 13,780 | 13.3 | |
| Democratic | Carlos Marquez III | 9,337 | 9.0 | |
| Democratic | Rosanna Herber | 9,257 | 9.0 | |
| Democratic | Sean Frame | 6,982 | 6.8 | |
| Democratic | Emmanuel Amanfor | 3,920 | 3.8 | |
| Democratic | Evan Minton | 2,706 | 2.6 | |
| Peace and Freedom | Kevin Olmar Martinez | 1,861 | 1.8 | |
| Total votes | 103,335 | 100.0 | ||
| General election | ||||
| Democratic | Maggy Krell | 133,581 | 66.9 | |
| Republican | Nikki Ellis | 66,217 | 33.1 | |
| Total votes | 199,798 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratic hold | ||||
References
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- 21st-century American women politicians
- 21st-century members of the California State Legislature
- Democratic Party members of the California State Assembly
- Women state legislators in California
- Politicians from Sacramento, California
- People associated with Planned Parenthood
- American prosecutors
- Women prosecutors
- Anti–human trafficking activists
- Human trafficking in the United States
- Sex trafficking
- University of California, Davis alumni
- 1978 births
- Living people