According to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, California has gotten a bang for its buck through the state’s torrent of litigation against the Trump administration.
The two Democrats appeared at a news conference Monday to tout and defend Bonta’s whopping 37 lawsuits against the Republican administration, a rate of more than one per week since Trump took office in January.
The lawsuits have aimed to release withheld federal funding for schools, public health, electric vehicles and more, as well as to try to thwart cuts to federal agencies and programs. Some California Republicans have condemned the lawsuits as frivolous and motivated by politics, while Democrats say they’re sadly necessary to keep the state running and defend their legislative priorities.
The Bay Area News Group reported in July that the litigation had secured the release of at least $168 billion in federal funds and a slew of temporary pauses on Trump administration initiatives. The windfall continues to swell. Bonta on Monday hailed another recent court victory that forced the Trump administration to release about $1 billion for education programs in California. One program that was frozen, the Migrant Education Program, was created by Congress in the 1960s to ensure children of migrant farm workers receive proper instruction and prepare for “responsible citizenship.”
“What we’re demanding is that we get the funding that’s already been legally approved and appropriated to our state,” Bonta said. “The money is critical and it touches every corner of California.”
Other victories so far include the release of $300 million for electric vehicle chargers and another nearly $1 billion for public health programs such as infectious disease tracking and immunizations, Bonta said.
The attorney general hasn’t always prevailed, though. Bonta unsuccessfully sued to halt Trump’s tariffs and stop deployments of Marines and National Guard to Los Angeles, for example.
According to Bonta, 13 court orders are currently pausing Trump’s initiatives as a result of the legal campaign. That can change quickly as cases wind through the courts; the fate of the vast majority of Bonta’s lawsuits are still in question.
Newsom said on Monday he stood behind Bonta. Soon after Trump’s victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris in November, the governor convened a special session of the California Legislature to push through an emergency allocation of $25 million for Bonta’s Department of Justice and local prosecutors to challenge Trump initiatives in court.
Of that, $5 million went to the Justice department. Lawmakers then doled out another $14 million for litigation in the current budget. The agency added 20 more attorneys to work on these cases with the funds.
“California’s early, proactive and defensive actions have helped California maintain its values in the face of wholesale attacks against our families and communities, while also serving as a backstop against tyrannical actions by President Trump and those who aim to ignore the rule of law,” Newsom said in a statement. “As the federal government continues to attack our state, California will keep defending itself, its values and its people.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A message for California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, a frequent critic of Newsom, was not returned by deadline.
State Republicans opposed the special legislative session this winter and argued that it was unnecessary. After the deadly Los Angeles firestorm in January, political analysts also said Newsom’s adversarial stance could imperil the governor’s attempts to appease Trump and win federal disaster aid. Their relationship, which is usually adversarial, has since soured, although Newsom says often that he is happy to work with the president.
However, even a top Republican critic of Newsom, Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones of San Diego, told Bay Area News Group last month that it made sense to “fight for our share of federal funding.” Newsom has argued Californians provide $83 billion more to the federal government than they receive from the federal government.
Bonta’s predecessor and fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra filed 122 lawsuits against Trump’s first administration, which released billions of dollars in federal funding for California. Exactly how much is unclear. The Attorney General’s office said it does not keep track of that litigation, much of which was dropped after Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020. Bonta is on pace to exceed Becerra’s volume of litigation.
Bonta launched his first volley of litigation the day after Trump took office and signed an executive order to eliminate birthright citizenship. That lawsuit and others filed by Democratic attorneys general initially won sweeping pauses on the order. The U.S. Supreme Court later voided the pauses. Separate litigation continues to prevent it from going into effect for now.
Along with the lawsuits, California has also filed more than 40 amicus briefs in support of litigation by other attorneys general, Bonta said.
Bonta on Monday criticized the Trump administration’s “sweeping campaign to illegally withhold funding and services, to dismantle the government and to strip Californians of their constitutional rights.”
“We’ve been ready to strike back at every turn,” he said.
