SACRAMENTO — Seven months into President Trump’s second time period, California has filed 37 lawsuits in opposition to his administration and spent about $5 million doing it.
Earlier than you go off on a government-spending rant, let me drop this determine on you: For every greenback the state has spent in litigation with Trump, it has recouped $33,600 in funds that the federal authorities has tried to remove from the Golden State, in line with Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.
That, as he put it throughout a Monday information convention, is “bringing the receipts.”
These aren’t {dollars} Californians have been wishing for or begging for from the federal authorities — these are funds which have already been legally allotted to the state however which the Trump administration is making an attempt to cease for causes petty, ideological or each. They pay for trainer coaching, immunizations, monitoring infectious ailments, holding roads protected, catastrophe restoration and on and on. And they’re predominantly your tax {dollars}, being withheld out of your state.
“What we’re demanding is that we get the funding that’s already been legally authorized and appropriated,” Bonta mentioned.
However as a lot because it’s about paying for the fundamentals that hold California going, it’s additionally about defending an inclusive and equitable way of life that defines the ethos of our state. Don’t tread on us! Californians get to spend our cash how we see match.
“While you add all of it up, you see the totality of what’s at stake: the California dream,” Bonta mentioned. “The concept each Californian, irrespective of how they appear, the place they reside or how a lot cash they’ve, can ship their child to highschool, go to the physician once they’re sick and put meals on the desk and a roof over their heads.”
Or as Gov. Gavin Newsom put it, it’s litigation not for the sake of suing, however to “defend, to face tall, to carry the road when it comes to our values, the issues we maintain expensive.”
It’s severe occasions, of us. Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t stand for LGBTQ+ rights, for immigrants’ rights, for girls’s rights, for due course of and even public faculties. However to date, the courts have held, for essentially the most half, to their duty to be a verify on this unbalanced administration.
In fact, legal professionals win instances, typically no matter details. I need to give a shout out to our state Division of Justice. Bonta will be the state’s prime lawyer, however there’s a complete military of authorized of us behind these lawsuits.
The $5 million spent to date has been totally in-house, Bonta mentioned. This money isn’t going to costly outdoors counsel, however, as my colleague Kevin Rector factors out, cash that’s funding the sensible, proficient attorneys and employees who work for taxpayers.
Quite a lot of of them have been round throughout Trump’s first time period, when the state was concerned in additional than 120 lawsuits in opposition to his administration. A lot of these fits have been about course of — the haphazard, rules-be-damned approach Trump seeks to implement his insurance policies.
Our California legal professionals discovered then that courts do in actual fact uphold legislation, and easily mentioning that guidelines need to be adopted was usually sufficient to cease Trump. Whereas we now have a seasoned authorized crew that understands the weaknesses in what Trump is doing, the sort-of-funny half is that he’s nonetheless doing it. Few classes discovered, which is nice for California.
To date, these lawsuits by California have ensured that about $168 billion that Trump would have lower off as a substitute continued to circulation to California. Bonta mentioned that within the 19 instances which have made it in entrance of a choose to date, he’s succeeded in 17, together with successful 13 courtroom orders instantly blocking Trump’s “unlawful actions.”
He’s additionally secured wins outdoors of courtroom, together with when the U.S. Division of Schooling not too long ago backed down after freezing faculty funding weeks earlier than faculty is about to start out. That funding, underneath risk of a lawsuit, has been restored.
Bonta mentioned that whereas the state is preventing each lawsuit with rigor, two are private to him and “stay kind of a very powerful when it comes to what they characterize.”
They occur to be the primary two fits the state filed, shortly after Trump took workplace. The primary was about birthright citizenship, and Trump’s bid to finish it. It’s a case Bonta says is “very significant” to him.
Bonta was born within the Philippines and immigrated to america when he was 2 months outdated, residing in a trailer within the Central Valley city of La Paz, the house of the United Farm Staff. His mother and father left their nation to keep away from martial legislation because the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos gained energy, and labored with civil rights leaders together with Cesar Chavez as soon as they settled right here.
So it is sensible that an govt order that would depart about 24,500 infants born annually in California with out U.S. citizenship hits onerous with Bonta.
Bonta, together with attorneys common of a number of different states, filed that lawsuit the day after Trump took workplace, in response to an govt order he signed on Inauguration Day. To date, a number of courts have expressed deep skepticism of that order, and the concept the Structure and prior Supreme Court docket rulings needs to be ignored in favor of Trump’s place.
The second case that Bonta takes personally is a multistate pushback on Trump’s sweeping halt of federal funding. That case put in danger about $3 trillion nationwide, together with that $168 billion in California, a couple of third of the state funds.
Developing subsequent is a problem to the deployment of Marines and Nationwide Guard troops in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has been quietly eradicating these troopers in current days, maybe in preparation for asking the courtroom to drop that case, which looks as if a loser for them. No troops, no case. We’ll see the way it goes in a number of days.
“The Marines and the Nationwide Guardspeople arrived to quiet streets in L.A.,” Bonta mentioned. “The president has been extremely, in my opinion, disrespectful to those patriots. He’s handled them as political pawns.”
The $5 million the state has spent to date on authorized fights with Trump is a part of $25 million the Legislature put aside earlier this yr throughout a particular session. Bonta mentioned that even that can doubtless not be sufficient to maintain the challenges flowing for the following three and a half years.
Newsom, for his half, is all in and promised that Bonta “is not going to be in want of sources to do his job.” (And sure, I do know it raises his profile for a 2028 presidential run.)
As a lot because it appears ridiculous that we’re setting apart this enormous chunk of change for authorized charges at a second when we face a funds disaster, the price of letting Trump run roughshod over our state is far larger. That is cash nicely spent.
As a result of it’s not simply our federal funding at stake, it’s the California dream.
