California lawmakers are big on TikTok. What happens if Trump bans it?

When Assemblymember Alex Lee was sworn into office at age 25, he became the youngest state lawmaker in nearly a century. The self-described “Zoomer” from San José started using TikTok in 2020 and now, five years later, he continues to reach voters on the app, distilling complicated policy issues into bite-sized clips.

The first openly bisexual state legislator in California, Lee has made posts supporting the LGBTQ+ community, along with explainers on legislation he wrote to ban the sale of anti-aging skin products to minors and the California special session to stabilize gas prices.

With a following that hovers at just under 1,300, Lee said that compared with his colleagues in Sacramento he is “mildly, vaguely successful” on the app. “I’m not that big of a TikTok star.”

But he also described how he uses it strategically, avoiding “things that are cringe” and anything that might risk getting him stereotyped as the Gen Z legislator.

“There’s a way to dismiss the youngest member that makes you look unserious or childish, but I’m very deliberate about it,” said Lee, who manages his account with the help of his small team. “That’s also why I avoid the trendy stuff.”

The Supreme Court last week upheld a TikTok ban enacted by Congress due to national security concerns, and by Sunday users were blocked from the platform. A mere half-day later, President Trump gave the company a 90-day extension, leaving Lee and a small but growing group of California politicians who are active on the app wondering what comes next.

Sen. Scott Wiener, 54, a Democrat from San Francisco, counts just under 15,000 followers and has been mastering the art of getting videos to rack up views while also making what is sometimes dry policy digestible.

“TikTok really allows you as an elected official to connect with a lot of people you’re not connecting with otherwise,” he told The Times. At first, the senator and his team tried to jump on trends, but he soon pivoted to film direct-to-camera videos, a popular TikTok style.

“Those videos do well because people like authenticity,” he said. Some posts “flop,” he added, but the “bottom line is that TikTok is an extremely powerful platform to communicate with people.”

Some U.S. lawmakers allege TikTok could be used by the Chinese government to gather data on Americans and fuel misinformation, a claim the company behind the short-form video app has vigorously denied. Trump, through an executive order, gave the company ByteDance three months to either sell the app or be banned.

Wiener said he understands the national security implications but argued a ban would be “tragic” because it would censor a popular way to communicate.

Under a ban, Wiener said he’d probably pivot to Instagram. He has also been pondering hypotheticals. For instance: What happens if tech billionaire Elon Musk purchased TikTok?

“I’m worried he’d ruin TikTok like he did X,” Wiener said.

Countless U.S. officials from across the aisle, from local politics to the executive branch, have made their presence known on the app, including Trump, who has 15 million followers and used the app heavily on the campaign trail. Vice President JD Vance has 2.3 million followers, and U.S. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez from New York has 1.6 million. Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter amassed over half a million. The list goes on.

One federal lawmaker who voted against the TikTok ban last year, U.S Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from Long Beach, has been posting on the app since 2022. From his perspective, the app isn’t any more dangerous than other forms of social media.

“There has to be a better way of looking at all of our social media platforms and being more equitable about how to make them safer,” Garcia said. “There is nothing I have heard that makes me think TikTok is an imminent threat to national security.”

He has about 110,000 followers on TikTok, far more than on other platforms where he maintains a presence.

“TikTok is a great way for reaching folks,” Garcia said. “It took a little time, but it’s been steadily growing. I’ve had some videos go viral.”

One of Garcia’s most popular videos has over 2.2 million views. The caption reads: “When you find out that you are the only Congressman that has to sit on the same three committees as Marjorie Taylor Greene,” with a backdrop of the congresswoman and the audio of a man crying, “no, no!”

Another viral clip shows Garcia on MSNBC in December saying, “welcome to the Elon Musk presidency.” It has 2.5 million views.

Although dunking on political rivals is sometimes the aim, other lawmakers say the app is useful more as a way to engage with constituents and understand their needs.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a Democrat from San José who uses TikTok, said he has “learned a lot” from the platform.

“Especially with the horrific fires in Los Angeles, to see the firsthand experiences of people and to have that empathy,” he said. “In that sense, it not only connects us to this human experience we share, but it gives a venue for ordinary people to vent their political viewpoints.”

U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from Silicon Valley, voted against the TikTok ban and has used the platform over the last few weeks to collect signatures to stop the app from going dark. After four days, the video had almost 18 million views and the petition had collected over 1 million signatures. Khanna, who has amassed 200,000 followers on the app, has since introduced the “Repeal the TikTok Ban Act” on Monday.

“The fight continues,” Khanna said to the camera. “We must make sure that this app never goes dark again.”

U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Silicon Valley Democrat, voted against the TikTok ban and has grown a sizable following on the app.

(Rep. Ro Khanna)

His co-author, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), warned in a statement that shutting down TikTok would be the first step down a slippery slope.

“They tell you this is about China. About security. About safety. That’s a lie. This is about control,” Paul said in a statement. “A government that can silence a platform, can silence a person. Today, it’s TikTok. Tomorrow, it’s your news.”

Oliver Haimson, an assistant professor at the School of Information and the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan, is wary of what a ban will do to information access, especially for people under 24, who are a large portion of users.

“This matters a lot for young people who are receiving news and learning about political candidates,” he said.

Haimson also has concerns that users will migrate to TikTok’s competitor, Instagram Reels, owned by Meta, which recently ended its fact-checking program. The platform will transition toward a crowd-sourcing method, similar to Musk’s approach with X.

“That worries me,” Haimson said. “They may be getting things that are not necessarily true.”