Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates takes position with Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice

Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates, who has done battle with the state of California over myriad issues in recent years, now finds himself headed to Washington, D.C.

Gates announced Monday he is resigning to take a job with the United States Department of Justice as a deputy assistant attorney general, in the civil rights division.

“The voters put Trump in office to restore a lot of what has been damaged across the country,” Gates said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times on Monday, adding that he has been an “unapologetic supporter” of the president since 2015. “I’m glad to take a role as being a part of that restoration — that we need to put America back to where it was ... a nation of laws.”

Gates, 49, stated in a news release that serving the city he grew up in (he played football and wrestled when a student at Marina High School) has been a pleasure since he was first elected city attorney in 2014.

Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates speaks at a mayor’s town hall meeting in 2023.

(File Photo)

Gates was reelected in 2018 then again in 2022, beating out Scott Field, a former employee who won a $2.5 million age discrimination lawsuit against the city.

Gates, a Republican, has been battling with Democrat state leaders in Sacramento in recent years over voter identification, housing mandates and other issues.

“In March of 2023, the state demanded the court order the city to immediately adopt a housing element packed with state [Regional Housing Needs Assn.] mandates that would destroy our city,” Gates said in Monday’s announcement. “As of today, nearly two full years later, the state has not accomplished anything from its lawsuit that it set out to do. Nothing. We are winning. The fight, although long from over, is worth it. As I have told many, you cannot win if you never take up the fight.”

Judges haven’t always agreed with his arguments that Huntington Beach’s charter city status gave it authority to cast aside state mandates, however.

Gates also said in the release that he will recommend to the City Council that it hire longtime chief assistant City Atty. Mike Vigliotta as his replacement. The position is up for reelection in 2026.

Vigliotta left in 2023 to be the city attorney for the city of Orange.

“[Vigliotta] will be the perfect replacement to carry the city’s legal battles forward, including continuing with the city’s voter ID law, the high-density housing fights and the city’s important legal battle over the state’s sanctuary law,” Gates said.

Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates, flanked by City Council members Casey McKeon and then-Mayor Tony Strickland, speaks at a City Hall press conference in 2023.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Gates was a lightning rod at times, beloved by many in the city’s conservative population and critiqued by many others.

He drew criticism from some when he declined to release the full multimillion-dollar settlement with Pacific Airshow LLC, following the cancellation of the final day of the 2021 show due to an oil spill off the coast. Gates said he wouldn’t reveal the full deal due to possible litigation with oil pipeline operator Amplify Energy, which the city settled with prior to litigation last fall.

Huntington Beach resident and Ocean View School District trustee Gina Clayton-Tarvin successfully sued the city to get the full settlement released. An audit of the settlement was ordered by the state California Joint Legislative Audit Committee last May, but state auditor Grant Parks sued the city months later for failing to comply.

Clayton-Tarvin said Monday that she believed that Gates has been pandering to right-wing causes and to Trump specifically in recent months. She accused him of “wasting our tax dollars on political folly so that he could get himself noticed by the Trump Administration.

“Many people could see it, but due to the hyper-partisanship in Huntington Beach, some people chose not to see it like that,” she said. “They saw it as, ‘Oh great, he’s going after immigrants, or the LGBT community, or these groups that we don’t like’ ... Michael Gates was their kind of great white knight.”

Gates said in the release that his absence doesn’t mean that Huntington Beach will stop battling Sacramento.

“Huntington Beach will continue to fight aggressively, and the city will ultimately prevail,” he said. “The law is on the city’s side, and while it may take time in the courts, I have every faith that the city will ultimately be vindicated by the law.”