SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers will return to the state Capitol on Monday to begin a special session aimed at protecting the state’s progressive policies from another Trump presidency.
The Democratic governor, a fierce critic of President-elect Donald Trump, is once again positioning California as the center of a pushback against the conservative agenda. He is asking his Democratic allies in the Legislature, who hold supermajorities in both chambers, to approve additional funding for the attorney general’s office to prepare for a resilient legal fight against expected federal challenges.
California sued the first Trump administration more than 120 times with varying degrees of success.
“We will not be caught off guard,” Newsom said at a recent press conference.
Trump often portrays California as a symbol of everything he believes is wrong with America. Democrats who hold all of California’s statewide offices and command dominant margins in the Legislature and congressional delegation outnumber registered Republicans statewide by nearly two to one.
Trump called the Democratic governor a “new scum” during a campaign stop in Southern California and has relentlessly criticized the Democratic stronghold for its immense number of illegal immigrants in the U.S., its homeless population and its thicket of regulations.
Trump also became embroiled in a water rights battle over the endangered Delta smelt, a petite fish that has pitted environmentalists against farmers and threatened to withhold federal aid to a state increasingly at risk of wildfires. He also vowed to keep his campaign promise to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and prosecute his political enemies.
Before the special session begins, state lawmakers are scheduled to swear in more than two dozen up-to-date members and elect leaders for the 2025 legislative session. Hundreds of people also plan to march around the Capitol on Monday to urge the legislature to stop Trump’s mass deportation plans.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office would protect the state’s immigrant population, while Newsom last week unveiled a proposal to revive a rebate program for electric vehicle purchases if the up-to-date Trump administration eliminates a federal tax credit for people who buy electric cars. Newsom is also considering creating a replacement disaster relief fund for the state, which is ravaged by wildfires following Trump’s threats.
Republican lawmakers criticized Newsom and his Democratic allies during the special session. Rep. Vince Fong, who represents the state’s Central Valley farm belt, said California should work with the up-to-date Trump administration instead.
“Gavin Newsom’s actions are tone deaf to the concerns of Californians who disapprove of the direction of our state and country,” Fong said in a video on social media.
Lawmakers are also expected to discuss later this year how to protect dozens of laws expected to be targeted by the Trump administration, including one that has made the state a sanctuary for people who Seeking abortions and living in states that have severely restricted such practices.
California, the country’s most populous state, has become the first state to mandate that all up-to-date cars, pickup trucks and SUVs sold in California must be electric, hydrogen-powered or plug-in hybrids by 2035. The state is also expanding federally funded health care to all low-income residents, regardless of immigration status.
Newsom has not provided details about what measures lawmakers will consider, but said he wants to secure funding before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The state spent about $42 million in litigation costs during the first Trump administration, officials said.
California is expected to face a $2 billion budget deficit next year, with even larger deficits to come. Rep. Jesse Gabriel, who sued the first Trump administration in 2017 when it tried to end a program protecting juvenile immigrants from deportation, said providing the funding now would be “a smart investment.”
California successfully recovered $57 million between 2017 and 2018 after prevailing in a lawsuit that sought to block the Trump administration from setting immigration enforcement conditions on certain federal law enforcement grants. Another legal victory on the citizenship question in the 2020 census forced the federal government to return $850,000 to the state, according to the attorney general’s office.
“We have the ability to be the spearhead of resistance when necessary and push back against unlawful or unconstitutional actions by the Trump administration,” said Gabriel, chairman of the Budget Committee.
During Trump’s first presidency, Democratic attorneys general joined forces to file lawsuits on immigration, Trump’s travel ban on residents of Muslim countries, the environment, immigration and other issues. But Trump has a potential advantage this time: He has been aggressive in nominating conservative jurists to federal courts at all levels, including the Supreme Court.
