Faced with the return of a President of the United States who is now unchained by the law and unhinged by mental decline, California's Attorney General is once again prepared to resist.
Faced with four more years of a Trump administration and a more aggressive attack on the rights and peoples of the United States, California is once again poised to be a center of resistance. While the hellscape brought about by the election of Trump barrels toward us, the last days of sanity in our Federal government wind down, California Attorney General Rob Bonta had this to say:
"The best way to protect California, its values, the rights of our people, is to be prepared, so we won't be flat-footed," said Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose team has been working with advocacy organizations and attorneys general in other states on how they would answer another Trump administration. "We will fight as we did in the past if that scenario unfolds."
During Trump's first term, California sued more than 100 times over his rules and regulatory rollbacks. Bonta said his team has preemptively written briefs and tested arguments to challenge many of the policies they expect the former president to pursue over the next four years: passing a national abortion ban and restricting access to abortion medication; revoking California's waiver to regulate its own automobile tailpipe emissions and overruling its commitment to transition to zero-emission vehicles; ending protections for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children; undermining the state's extensive gun control laws, including for assault weapons, 3D-printed firearms and ghost guns; implementing voter identification requirements; and attacking civil rights for transgender youth.
"Unfortunately, it's a long list," Bonta told CalMatters days before the election. "We are and have been for months developing strategies for all of those things."
Fighting in the courts seems excellent, but the recent gift of immunity to the laws that bind others, given by the Supreme Court to the President, may make that less effective. Indeed, the dark red Supreme Court will only be cemented in place or deepened as the Republicans appear to control all houses of government. The good news is that the leadership at the forefront of this fight has been preparing. The shock of this turn has ordinary folks like me unable to concentrate through the fear.
Previously:
• California's legislative leaders vow to lead the resistance
