California Assembly Shamed into Freezing its Absurd $50 Million Plan to “Trump-Proof” State
Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom is notified of Intent to Recall as petition reaches signature target.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in the wake of the Greater Los Angeles wildfires, the state Legislature considered spending $50 million “Trump-proofing” the state: $25 million for lawfare, and $25 million for supporting illegal immigrants.
The move was tone-deaf and poorly received by all voters, red and blue alike.
Robert Rivas (D), speaker of the California State Assembly, fumbles through his response after getting blasted by a reporter for holding a special legislative session to fight Trump while fires rage through the state.
Total incompetencepic.twitter.com/c3LdSQOlaG
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 10, 2025
Now, California Democrats in the Assembly have abruptly delayed a vote on the #Resistance 2.0 package.
California legislators were tight-lipped about their decision Thursday to delay votes on a pair of bills that would provide up to $50 million combined for the state Department of Justice and organizations that provide legal services to respond to actions taken by the administration of President Donald Trump.
The Assembly was set to take up the bills after they were approved last week in the Senate. But Democrats were called into a closed door meeting shortly after their work for the day began.
When they emerged roughly an hour later, the measures were not voted on before the body adjourned for the week.
More than a dozen lawmakers and members of their staff did not respond to requests for comment or declined to discuss the reason for the delay.
Part of the reason for this move is that Trump has stiffened California Republicans’ spines through his actions, and “being soft on crime” is a significant image problem Democrats are facing (especially as ICE arrest videos are being upvoted by millions on social media).
Officially, the speaker’s office blamed the Trump administration’s funding freeze for the delay, saying lawmakers wanted to be sure the bills were “airtight and protect all Californians” before they could vote.
But the decision also comes amid concerns about who would be able to access $25 million in legal aid to avoid deportation. Democrats — newly sensitive to perceptions of being soft on crime — this week faced criticism from Republicans who noted that the legislation doesn’t explicitly prohibit nonprofits from using the money to help undocumented immigrants with criminal histories.
And then there’s the Laken Riley Act. The federal law Trump signed Wednesday requires DHS officers to detain and deport undocumented immigrants charged with low-level crimes like shoplifting. As a result, there is heightened awareness of the possibility that people facing criminal charges — and held in detention centers when they previously might have been released, pending court proceedings — may benefit from the legal aid fund.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is staying out of the fray publicly.
After major backlash from Californians and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the Assembly walked back a vote on Newsom’s $50 million slush fund to sue Trump.
Los Angeles is battling a catastrophic wildfire, and California faces a massive budget deficit for future years. The…
— Brian W. Jones (@SenBrianJones) January 30, 2025
Newsom is likely regretting his attempt to become the top general in the new #Resistance war against Trump, and keeping a low profile is probably wise. His decision to proceed and go forward with the $50 million spending spree while Los Angeles burned, on top of poor policy priorities that neglected water infrastructure and wildfire prevention, contributed to a recall effort that has entered into a new phase.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially been notified of an attempt to remove him from his position after an intent to recall petition reached the required number of signatures, Newsweek has learned.
….An intention to recall petition against Newsom, seen by Newsweek, has surpassed the 50 signatures required to initiate recall proceedings against the governor.
It received 105 signatures, and was sent to Newsom on Monday, Saving California Chairman Randy Economy, who is a former senior adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., told Newsweek. Under California law, recipients of a recall petition have 10 days to acknowledge the notice after they receive it.
Once that’s done and the petition is approved by the state, a process expected to take a few weeks of signature gathering for the recall petition can officially begin. While the recall effort is set to start collecting signatures within 30 days, the group Saving California is pushing for an earlier launch. To qualify for the ballot, organizers will need to gather between 1.2 million and 1.3 million signatures over 160 days.
Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey argues that ending this absurdity is an act of self-preservation for the Democrats.
The biggest shock is that it took these geniuses twenty full days to realize that Trump would be the one person who would dictate the terms of federal aid they will desperately need to keep voters mollified enough to prevent them from punishing the party that ran California into the ground.
Not to mention, it may have finally occurred to them how self-obsessed Sacramento Democrats looked while going out of their way to spend $50 million on their Orange Man Bad obsession while tens of thousands of Californians watched their homes go up in flames.
However, I still believe all of these events have combined to end Newsom’s ambition to bring his vision for California to the rest of the nation.
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Comments
All the gold in California is sitting in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills—
—and they are not going to pour it down the drain chasing an Impossible dream
For you can no more Trump proof something than you can stop the sun from coming up in the morning
Trump should have simply reminded them that Trump proofing the state applies to aid as well as whatever they don’t like.
Like withholding $100 million over the $50 million in a multitude subtle of ways. I hope that Trump squashes Dems in California. Californians should he hopping mad about what Dems have done to the state.
No, it doesn’t, unless he has authority from Congress, and even then there are limits.
For instance, he absolutely cannot withhold even one cent from sanctuary cities or states, in order to pressure them to cooperate with ICE. Only Congress can put conditions on funding for states, and even it must make those conditions explicit, and even then the cut may not be so big that it forces the states to do what Congress wants.
Newsome sucks and has since he has been in politics but the real danger is Bass. She is setting up a system where the burned out residents will have no say in what happens and she with a small band of communists will impose conditions on any rebuilding which will result in the lefts dream of a “15 min city” complete with multi family welfare housing, green building codes etc.
Asking for a friend: what would it take to return CA t territorial status?
Tell your friend, the first you would have to do is ask Mexico if it’s for sale.
A constitutional amendment.
How do you cash in on this insanity.
It depends on who you are:
If you are black: ask for reparations
If you are illegal: ask for a job
If you are a movie star: ask for a role
If you are tired of all the BS: ask for a U-haul truck
Gov. Noisome has always been marked by his personal ambition to exercise power over the peasantry, and that will never change; what he’s doing now is trying to figure out how to re-brand himself as a moderate centrist rather then a raving leftist tyrant.
Too late to sell the moderate con.
Maybe California should pay off some of their debt before passing new costly bills. Or reduce taxes and stimulate the California economy. Or cancel regulations that are causing businesses to move away.
Trump proofing? Sounds like they hate democracy and the will of the people. Also insurrectiony. They need put
…in jail for 4 years without any charges or a trial.
Really hate how this website works, moving stuff around while I’m trying to type
It’s when they embed tweets in a post. They need to allocate a fixed height for them, so the post knows in advance how tall it needs to be. The way they do it, each time it loads a tweet the post’s height increases, so it keeps jumping around. And if there are many tweets it takes a long time to load them all.
“it may have finally occurred to them how self-obsessed Sacramento Democrats looked while going out of their way to spend $50 million on their Orange Man Bad obsession while tens of thousands of Californians watched their homes go up in flames.”
Oh, they indulged ALL their obsessions — especially their “Clean Air” obsession, sequestering out-of-state fire trucks for emissions inspections, while cities continued to belch tons of smoke and ash into that “clean air.”