How California 'Trump-proofed' itself against federal retaliation | California

California was proud of its defiance of Donald Trump during his first term as president and will have little to strain to take on the same role a second time.

In fact, as a bastion of the Democratic Party's strength in a country that is moving sharply to the right, it has long been preparing for this moment.

“California will continue to be at the forefront of progress, the linchpin of democracy, the champion of innovation and the protector of our rights and freedoms,” Adam Schiff, the state's newly elected senator and a frequent target of Trump's ire, promised his supporters on election night.

On Thursday, Gavin Newsom announced a special session of the California Legislature to ensure the attorney general's office and other state agencies have the resources they need. “We will not sit idle,” the governor said. “California has faced this challenge before and we know how to respond.”

Even with Trump out of power in 2021, California has put in place safeguards to protect its residents' rights under a hostile federal government. The state has enshrined the right to abortion in its constitution, passed a ballot initiative that explicitly defends the right of same-sex couples to marry, and pushed for stricter gun laws that still follow the Supreme Court's narrow interpretation of the right to bear arms are equivalent to.

She has even considered setting up federal funding to cover the costs of wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters if the Trump administration decides to withhold emergency funds from states it deems politically hostile, as it sometimes did during its 2017-21 term has done.

“We Trump-proofed the place,” said Elizabeth Ashford, a political consultant who has worked for governors on both sides of the aisle and was chief of staff to Kamala Harris when she was California’s attorney general. “The work… has been to take actions that can withstand the changes in Washington and the Supreme Court. These projects have been going on for years.”

When asked how ready she thought California was for the new administration, Ashford said, “On a scale of one to 100, we start at about 90.”

California is both the most populous U.S. state and the strongest economy, making it an unusual counterweight to the power of the federal government. For example, it has negotiated directly with automakers over emissions standards, bypassing the stated desire of Trump's allies to scrap a long-standing rule , which allows the state to set its own standards.

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Where it fails to bypass the federal government, it can try to challenge any evidence of government overreach in court, as it did more than 130 times during the first Trump administration. Rob Bonta, the state's attorney general, told CalMatters last week that his team had prepared briefs and considered arguments on a range of issues – from restrictions on abortion drugs to gun laws to protecting the civil rights of young transgender people.

“The best way to protect California, its values ​​and the rights of our people is to be prepared,” Bonta told CalMatters. “Unfortunately the list is long.”

In a statement Wednesday, Bonta said California will “continue to move forward driven by our values ​​and the continued pursuit of progress.” He added: “I will use the full force of the law and the full authority of my office to ensure this happens.”

It's unlikely it will take long for California and the new administration to clash. Newsom has long been a Trump opponent and spent much of the campaign traveling the country campaigning for Democratic candidates – all of which makes him a likely lightning rod for Trump's ire.

Trump called Newsom “one of the worst governors in the country” and nicknamed him “New Scum.” Their rivalry is also personal, as Newsom's ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle is engaged to Donald Trump Jr.

Trump's former aides have made little secret of their desire to break the Democratic Party's stranglehold over California politics, laying out their intentions in documents like the Project 2025 plan, which became a lightning rod during the campaign. Despite Trump's attempts to distance himself from it, California officials have carefully studied the 2025 project and expect it to form the political backbone of the new administration. A California congressman, Jared Huffman, has described it as a “dystopian nightmare.”

There are several ways the state can try to break this nightmare. During Trump's first presidency, for example, state agencies including the California Highway Patrol refused to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency tasked with aggressive crackdowns on undocumented immigrants. Police in so-called “sanctuary cities” also protected their immigrant populations.

Despite all the preparation, however, state officials fear that the new Trump administration will be more organized and radical than the old one and that it will have more of a political mandate since the California electorate surged – much more than in 2020 or 2020 2016 – have expressed agreement with parts of the Trump agenda.

Newsom said last week he was particularly concerned about the prospect of widespread anti-immigrant crackdowns that could prove devastating to California's immigrant-dependent economy, including large farms based largely in the inland Central Valley.

There may be other parts of the Trump agenda that, if enacted, could prove difficult to undo — such as a nationwide abortion ban passed by Congress or a repeal of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. And that raises deep concerns among many advocacy groups about the vulnerable populations they serve.

“Our community feels very anxious and unsafe,” said Terra Russell-Slavin, an attorney with the Los Angeles LGBT Center, “particularly given the number of attacks that Trump has explosively directed against the LGBTQ community and particularly the trans community.”

In response, Russell-Slavin said her organization is working with state and local governments to find alternative funding sources should the federal government cut gender-specific health or homelessness or senior services. “We are very fortunate that our legislators overwhelmingly support this,” she said. “We are very confident that they will fight to protect us.”

Will that be enough? For now, California officials are baring their teeth and vowing to fight. But Newsom is under no illusions about how much is at stake. “No state,” he said last week, “has more to lose or more to gain in this election.”

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