California Governor Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers are kicking off a special session to safeguard progressive state policies in anticipation of President-elect Donald Trump's return to office. The session aims to fortify California's legal and political position against expected federal challenges to state laws and initiatives.
Newsom has requested increased funding for the attorney general's office to prepare for legal battles, building on California's precedent of opposing the Trump administration through lawsuits during his first presidency.
California filed over 120 lawsuits against federal actions between 2017 and 2020, with notable victories including the blocking of immigration enforcement conditions on federal grants and the reversal of a citizenship question in the 2020 census, as reported by the Associated Press.
The session comes as lawmakers face a $2 billion budget deficit and plan to deliberate on measures to protect policies such as abortion access, state-funded health care for all low-income residents regardless of immigration status, and the transition to electric vehicles. California has positioned itself as a leader in progressive policies, often at odds with federal conservative agendas.
Trump's newly appointed "border czar" Thomas Homan has made his position clear on the matter, saying that the new administration has plans to withhold federal funds from states and municipalities that refuse to cooperate with its mass deportation initiatives.
During an interview on CBS on Sunday, however, State Senator Alex Padilla emphasized that California law enforcement is under no obligation to assist federal authorities with immigration enforcement:
"I think there's an important distinction here. No state government, not Texas, not California, not any state in the nation has a constitutional authority to impose federal immigration law that is the responsibility of the federal government."
Newsom has also proposed initiatives to counter potential federal actions, such as reviving state rebates for electric vehicle purchases if federal tax credits are eliminated and establishing a disaster relief fund to mitigate Trump's previous threats to withhold wildfire assistance.
The California governor has also predicted that Trump's second term may be more strategically aggressive than his first, following the conservative blueprint of Project 2025, a set of policy plans penned by several members of his former administration that he dismissed during the campaign over its extreme views on some issues:
"Donald Trump has a playbook. They wrote it out for us. 922 pages. With 270 specific points he has publicly supported."
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