Issue #208: Building a Trump-proof legal wall
ICI brings you this week's news highlights
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Oops! In ironic twist, US Supreme Court ruling could help California resist Trump
Newsom goes to southern border to shake fist at Trump
California conservationists rush to grab federal funds while they can
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Remember… 58% of Californians think we’d be better off as our own country!
GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE
Letters: If California’s fight against Trump becomes a losing cause, here’s what the state should do
Noreen Wauford, SF Chronicle, Letter to the Editor
As the state Legislature discusses protecting Californians from Trumpian policies, I believe it should convene a committee to study the possibility of secession.
Why should we fuel a federal government if that government chooses to withhold aid and benefits we’re owed? If Donald Trump continues and magnifies this, we should seriously consider forming our own more perfect union.
PREPARING FOR TRUMP
Sen. Alex Padilla says Donald Trump has "made it no secret that he has it in for California"
Kaia Hubbard, CBS News
"We embrace our diversity," Padilla said. "Our diversity is what has made our communities thrive and our economy thrive. And so we will assist families against the threats of the Trump administration."
Meanwhile, as a "sanctuary state," California state law instructs local law enforcement not to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on deportations, teeing up what could be a clash with the Trump administration. Padilla, citing California's status as the most populous state in the nation with more immigrants than any other state, argued that the issue concerns the ability for people to be able to come forward to report a crime, saying "the last thing you want is immigrants who may be witnesses to crime to be afraid to come forward and share any information that they have in the investigation and prosecution of crimes."
"Let the federal government do the federal government's job, but have state and local officials do the state and local officials' job," Padilla continued. "There doesn't have to be a conflict unless that's what Trump wants."
Ruling by a conservative Supreme Court could help blue states resist Trump policies
Tim Henderson, Stateline
“A major U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer was hailed as a conservative court’s broadside against a Democratic administration, giving red states more backing to delay or overturn policies they don’t like, such as transgender protections and clean energy goals.
But the ruling in the Loper Bright case, which granted courts more power to scrutinize federal rules, can go both ways. Experts say it will likely give blue states more leeway to attack any forthcoming policy changes from President-elect Donald Trump — ranging from immigration and the environment to Medicaid and civil rights.
The decision overturns a legal concept called “Chevron deference,” in place since 1984 and named after a case involving the Chevron oil company. That ruling granted federal agencies wide discretion in interpreting vague laws that had been passed by Congress and sent to the executive branch to sort out the details. Generally, courts deferred to the agency regulations.
Chevron deference became a superstar of the courts, cited in more than 18,000 federal court decisions.
The latest ruling wipes that all away. Experts said it will boost blue-state resistance to Trump policies. Lawsuits already are being planned in many statehouses, as California holds a special session to set aside money for legal fights, and other states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York also talk court strategy. Democratic governors in Colorado and Illinois formed a coalition in November to “fortify essential democratic rights nationwide.”
In effect, the ruling opens more federal rules to those court challenges. Blue states now have a new weapon to fight conservative federal rules on issues such as immigration, climate change, abortion access and civil rights.”
Local groups prepare to battle Trump
Far from 'flaccid,' the anti-Trump movement is alive and well locally and nationally
Janis Hashe, East Bay Express
“Barely more than a week after the election, on Nov. 13, Politico announced, “The Trump resistance goes flaccid.” On Nov. 29, the same outlet announced, “The anti-Trump movement is in tatters.”
Post-election, those who worked hard for Harris and other Democrats were shocked and hugely disappointed. There was, and still is, a period called grieving. But nationally and locally, people still profoundly opposed to Trump and his policies are revitalizing. The Resistance will look different. It may not, suggested Indivisible East Bay leader Nancy Latham, even continue to use the term “resistance.” Indivisible East Bay is the local chapter of a national grassroots organization formed in 2017.
But, “flaccid” and “in tatters”? Said Latham, “[These journalists] apparently don’t have any direct sources that can tell them what activists are doing now. They could [have called] Swing Left, Public Citizen,” or multiple other organizations.”
Ahead of second Trump term, California vows ‘ironclad’ abortion access
Mackenzie Mays, LA Times
“Abortion remains legal in California, home to the strongest reproductive rights in the nation — unlike in some states, there is no required waiting period or counseling before the procedure, and minors can get abortions without parental involvement. In 2022, voters solidified abortion access in the state Constitution after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right, limiting healthcare for millions of women.
But as Trump prepares to take the White House again, California’s Democratic leaders are adamant that not enough has been done to secure reproductive access in case of further federal rollbacks.”
SAFEGUARDING IMMIGRANTS
The contours of California’s immigration resistance
Lindsey Holden, Politico
“As soon as the new legislative session kicked off on Monday, lawmakers began introducing immigration bills. Some policies have been attempted or in the works for some time, but they may take on more urgency now.
As the president-elect again vows a sweeping crackdown, Democratic lawmakers are floating new ideas to prevent family separation and labor-force disruptions — consequences that Gov. Gavin Newsom warned about today in a news conference at the border.
“When you look at farm workers … roughly half are undocumented,” he said. “Close to 90 percent have been in the state for years and years and years. They’re not going back and forth. Close to 60 percent have kids. The impacts of mass deportation on the cost of food in this state, in this nation, are off the charts.’”
Organized resistance to President-elect Trump’s second term starts taking shape.
Sara Rubin, Monterrey County NOW
“Immigration is high on the list of priorities for Monterey County’s leaders. The same day Newsom announced the special session, county supervisors Luis Alejo and Chris Lopez submitted a request to create a new ad hoc committee to address immigrants’ rights.
“In light of the election of a new presidential administration who has threatened to take unprecedented actions against immigrants, this referral seeks to create a Monterey County Immigrants Rights Ad Hoc Committee that will bring together key immigrant community stakeholders that could make recommendations, enhance communication and assist the County of Monterey in preparing and protecting our immigrant community in Monterey County against any unconstitutional and draconian federal actions,” according to their request to the board.
Whatever your political persuasion, the critical presence of immigrants in Monterey County is undeniable. Nearly one-third of our community is foreign-born. That this subset of our community—which not only powers our economic engine, but also adds perspective, art, culture, food and diversity of lived experience to Monterey County—is under attack means all of us are under attack.”
San Diego: California's 'Super Sanctuary' refuses to help ICE with mass deportations
Billal Rahman, Newsweek
“San Diego County, home to 3.3 million residents and situated along the U.S.-Mexico border, stands out as one of the more notable local governments enhancing protections for undocumented immigrants.
Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, recently issued a stark warning to Democratic lawmakers.
Homan sent a "clear message" to sanctuary cities opposing the incoming administration's stricter border policies: either get on board or step aside.
"You've got San Diego writing legislation. You've got Colorado and other states and other cities saying they're going to prevent us doing what I'm doing. I want to send a clear message. If you let us in the jail, we can arrest the bad guy in the jail and in the safety and security of the jail. One officer could do that, but when you release a public safety threat back in the community, you put the community at risk. You put my officers at risk. You put the alien at risk," he told Fox News.”
CA groups educate and prepare communities as Trump plans for mass deportations
Alyssa Goard, NBC Bay Area
“The public is getting a clearer picture of how President-elect Donald Trump plans to implement his campaign promises regarding immigration. In an interview aired Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Trump spoke with moderator Kristen Welker about how he intends to carry out plans for mass deportations.
Welker asked, "Is it your plan to deport everyone who is here illegally over the next four years?"
Trump responded, "Well, I think you have to do it. And it’s a hard-- it's a very tough thing to do.” "But you have to have—you know you have rules, regulations, laws, they came in illegally," Trump continued.
Trump also said that those deportations could possibly include deportations of American citizens along with their undocumented family members. “I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.’”
ICE is looking for a new detention center in Blue California. The state probably can’t stop it
Wendy Fry, CalMatters
“In August, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a request for information to identify additional detention bed space in the state as other federal agencies intensified border enforcement. The effort began in the wake of the Biden administration’s sweeping asylum ban, implemented in June, for migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border outside designated entry points. Under the ban, border agents can deport such migrants within hours or days without considering their asylum claims.
Advocates say an expansion of detention space would give Trump a runway to carry out more mass deportations in California. Immigrants in counties with more detention space are more likely to be arrested and detained, according to research by advocacy groups.
Unlike in Texas, where state officials are offering up land to the Trump administration to facilitate mass deportations, California tried to ban new federal immigrant detention centers from opening during the first Trump administration. The court blocked that, ruling that the state was unconstitutionally overstepping on federal immigration enforcement.”
Attorney General Bonta bolsters California's response to Trump's immigration proposals
California updates guidelines limiting State and local participation in immigration enforcement
Nic Garcia, ABC7 News
“‘We're issuing updated policies to guide institutions and their staff in complying with California law limiting state and local participation in immigration enforcement activities," said Bonta.
Bonta held his press conference in a public library in San Francisco, one of the institutions included in the updated guidance.
The policies are based on SB-54, which was passed in 2017 and limits the information state institutions and agencies can share with the federal government for immigration enforcement.
Immigrants are bracing for the incoming administration too.
Many people are making sure they're up-to-date on their paperwork and for the undocumented, attorneys have been busy helping educate them on their rights.”
Will Trump ban H-1B visas? The issue could divide him and Elon Musk
Ko Lyn Chaeng, SF Chronicle
”Immigration attorneys are bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to revive the restrictive immigration policies of his first term, including a 2020 attempt to ban H-1B visas, the temporary work visa for high-skilled foreign workers.
But he may face pushback from two tech executives who backed his campaign and have since joined his administration: megabillionaire Elon Musk and multimillionaire David Sacks.
This year, Tesla became a top-25 employer of H-1B workers for the first time, with 1,787 successful visa petitions, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.”
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENT
How local conservationists are planning for the Trump era
Tanvi Dutta Gupta, Bay Nature magazine
“Trump’s campaign trail promises, if enacted, are a “nightmare scenario” for environmental work, says David Hayes, former Special Assistant to Biden on climate policy. He helped author Biden’s signature climate bills, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which together authorized over $1.1 trillion in funding for climate and infrastructure work across the country. Bay Nature has documented almost $1.4 billion of that money going to the greater Bay Area for nature.
Trump has pledged to stop the flow. During his campaign, Trump said he would “rescind all unspent funds” from the Inflation Reduction Act. He’s also likely to cut down the Environmental Protection Agency, decimate environmental regulations, and cut federal capacity across the board.
The good news is that for many projects the money train has already left the station. Hayes says the race to get all the funding out the door during the Biden–Harris administration began months before the election. In the Bay Area, the EPA’s San Francisco Bay office had already planned to dole out everything at once from one of its BIL-augmented grant programs by next April—not because of the election, simply to make the grant process more efficient to run, Luisa Valiela, lead for the EPA’s SF Bay program, says.
And if federal funding streams slow or even stop, conservationists are taking solace in Californian voters’ recent approval of Proposition 4—a $10 billion bond measure to support a wide range of climate adaptation projects.”
California can protect climate policies—and pocketbooks
Julia Stein, Legal Planet
“California’s market-based programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have delivered cost-effective results and will help the state avoid serious costs in the future.
There’s no denying that compliance with these programs does cost money, and that those costs are at least partially passed through to consumers. A couple of points here. First, these programs are mechanisms to achieve statutorily mandated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and are, at least by some accounts, the most cost-effective way to do that. They have a proven track record, but they aren’t free. Second, and perhaps more importantly, abandoning our climate goals comes with huge costs, too—and not just from climate change. Staying the course will save Californians $200 billion in health costs from pollution by 2045. As they continue to address fuel and utility prices, lawmakers should also do a better job of communicating this important context, which hasn’t always been a focus of reporting on energy costs. Avoided costs are hard for constituents to see and appreciate, though, especially when they’re filling up their cars or paying their utility bills. That’s why legislators should do what they can to alleviate the up-front costs associated with the transition away from fossil fuels (more on that below). But they shouldn’t let short-term fears about gas prices, which are challenging to predict, interfere with future cost savings associated with a greener economy.”
California provides E-bike incentive vouchers for income qualified Californians
The first e-bike incentive application window OPENS on December 18th at 6pm PST.
California E-bike Incentive Project
“The California E-Bike Incentive Project provides up to $2,000 of point-of-sale incentives to support the purchase of a new electric bicycle (e-bike).
The California E-Bike Incentive Project is funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). CARB’s mission is to promote and protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering effects on the economy.”
Map: Where oodles of federal dollars for nature are going
Federal funding for Bay Area projects nears $1.4 billion
Kate Golden, Bay Nature magazine
“Funding announcements slowed in 2024. Many of these funding programs run through 2026, so we expect more to come—but what happens to uncommitted funds under the Trump administration is an open question.”
Click here for map of local project funding.
The California tsunami danger is real. The 7.0 earthquake is wake-up call to prepare
Though the circumstances were right, no major tsunami formed — this time.
Grace Toohey, Karen Garcia and Rong-Gong Lin II, LA Times
“Tsunami warnings remain rare for the West Coast, and actual major tsunamis are even more unusual, Snider said. But they do happen, which is why it’s important for residents to be prepared and know how to respond.”
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TRADE
California governor promotes trade with Mexico
Newsom goes to Mexico border to counter Trump
Lynn La, CalMatters
“Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday, railing against President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats and the economic damage a 25% tax on goods coming from Mexico would likely have on the binational region and the state.”
A trade war under Trump would bring major losses for California agriculture, experts warn
Ian James, LA Times
“The researchers analyzed three scenarios of potential U.S. tariffs, two of them based on proposals floated by Trump and his campaign. They wrote that if the Trump administration were to impose large tariffs under the most extreme scenario, retaliatory measures by other countries “would have a ripple effect across the state, from the large almond orchards in the Central Valley to the small family vineyards scattered throughout wine country.’”
HOUSING
California’s housing crisis has gotten worse, not better, over the last 30 years
Dan Walters, CalMatters
“Such high housing costs spawn other socioeconomic issues, the researchers continued, to wit:
California has the nation’s second lowest rate of home ownership, behind New York, and home ownership is particularly scant among young adults, and Blacks and Latinos of any age. “The bursting of the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession in 2008 hurt homeownership for Californians of all races and ethnicities, but African Americans and Latinos were more affected,” the study says.
High housing costs cause many Californians to be financially burdened. “The share of renters who are stressed — paying over half their income in rental costs — is considerably higher here than in other states,” Johnson and McGhee found. “Not surprisingly, housing stress most affects lower-income Californians, who are generally already in the cheapest rental units and cannot move to escape the burden.”
Housing stress in California has been growing fastest among middle-class families; “one in six middle-class renters in California are now spending over half their income on housing.”
High costs are a major factor in the homelessness crisis. The federal government estimates that California’s homeless population increased by 47% from 2007 to 2023, while the state’s overall population grew by just 7%, and “the vast majority of Californians experiencing homelessness are unsheltered; the state accounts for almost half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless population.’”
S.F. has the same housing goals as New York City — which is 10 times its size
J.K. Dineen, SF Chronicle
“For those who track housing politics in the Bay Area, the news stood out for another reason: 82,000 happens also to be the number of units state housing officials are mandating that San Francisco — a city with one-tenth of the population of New York — plan for in its current eight-year housing element, which goes from 2023 to 2031.
Depending on how you look at it, the twin 82,000 goals either underscore how ambitious California is about tackling a housing shortage 40 years in the making, or the absurdity of the state’s expectations.
Every California county and municipality is given a Regional Housing Needs Assessment number, known as RHNA, which tells a given location how many homes it needs to permit in eight years. Through the first two years of the current “housing element” cycle, San Francisco builders have produced about 3,600 units in San Francisco, less than 5% of the 82,000 goal. Another 4,300 units are under construction, which means that the city is on track to produce about 8,000 new units in the first half of its housing element cycle.”
IN OTHER NEWS
California food recalls have ramped up. Is that good news?
Ryan Fonseca, LA Times
“Product management software company Trace One studied data from the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on American food recalls over the last four years. The company found that the number of recalls grew more than 20% — to 547 in 2023 from 454 in 2020.
Nearly 4 out of every 10 of those recalls were issued in California, the company’s data analysis showed. Roughly 16% of all recalls originated from producers in the Golden State, “more than double the share of the next-closest state,” Trace One reported.
There’s a logical reason for that: California has the most recalls because it’s the largest food producer in the nation.”
California’s ethnic studies controversy
“Ethnic studies” is an ideological battleground in higher education, and now California is bringing its 1.6 million high school students into the fray. Every one of them must take an ethnic studies course to graduate, starting in the fall of 2025.
Commonwealth Club World Affairs
“But what will the course teach them? The State Department of Education’s original model curriculum—now candidly dubbed the “Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum”—was criticized for its anti-capitalist agenda, embrace of critical-race themes, and alleged antisemitism. Reaction was so intense that Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the original curricular mandate legislation. A second State Model Curriculum toned down some of the original emphases. The final legislation signed by the governor had a local-option twist: school districts are free to determine the ethnic studies curriculum used in their schools. As a result, the skirmish over ethnic studies can now be replayed district by district.
Independent Institute has created what it calls a balanced curriculum for the consideration of districts throughout the state. The “Comparative Cultures Ethnic Studies Curriculum” portrays the full tableau of American ethnic history, dark moments as well as instances of triumph and personal success. It explores contending schools of thought. Animated not by ideology but by balance, this curriculum builds on years of research and pedagogical insight.”
America's obsession with California failing
The long history of the exodus narrative
Tessa McLean, SFGate
“It’s been written again and again, so frequently since the COVID-19 pandemic, that it MUST be true. Even this publication is guilty of chronicling the state’s population fluctuations. Still, the outflow that occurred in 2020 and 2021 has largely rebounded, and data supports the fact that most of the movement happened within the Golden State itself. Yet politicians, the media and the internet at large continue to bullhorn through it all: California residents can’t leave the state fast enough.
And we all know what happened during the pandemic: Widespread claims that California was shrinking fast. Still, the state never lost more than 1% of its population — in fact, it’s never lost more than 1% of its population, ever — even in the past three years that resident numbers have declined, according to the Department of Finance. U.S. census data estimates a slightly bigger outflow, but the losses are still relatively meager.“
So much for the American Dream. Most Californians don’t believe it exists, survey says
Californians are in a gloomy mood at the moment.
Andrew Sheeler, Sacramento Bee
“The latest survey from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California finds that just a third (33%) of Californians still believe in the American Dream, the idea that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead. The rest either believe it isn’t true anymore (52%) or never was to begin with (15%).
Seven in 10 Californians said they think children growing up today will be worse off financially than their parents. The finding includes strong majorities across political parties, ethnic groups and income levels.”