Newsom vs. Trump: When big states take on the White House

California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said that his job is not to wake up every day and put a crowbar in the spokes of the wheel of the Trump administration. The Democrat has noted that he had a “shockingly good relationship” with Donald Trump during his first term as president. And when the second one begins on Jan. 20, Governor Newsom says he’ll approach the returning president with an “open hand, not a closed fist.”

And yet. The governor of the country’s most populous state, the man repeatedly mentioned as a possible presidential candidate for 2028, is putting on boxing gloves and suiting up for a legal battle.

Mr. Newsom has called a special session of the state legislature for Dec. 2 to fund anticipated legal action against policies in Donald Trump’s second term. With California’s size and strength as the world’s fifth largest economy behind him, Governor Newsom and his attorney general are expected to lead the charge as Democratic states prepare to take on the executive branch – a role reversal with red states, which – spearheaded by Texas – have repeatedly sued the Biden administration.

“California, due to its size and economic prowess, really can play an outsized role compared to other states across the country,’’ says Paul Nolette, an associate professor of political science at Marquette University. “Newsom understands that and realizes that this is a way to both push back substantively on Trump policies, as well as raise his own profile for the future.”

Now in his second term with two years to go, Governor Newsom is no newcomer to legal warfare. During Trump 1.0, California was involved in more than 120 lawsuits against the administration. Most were successful. But Democrats will have a tougher time in President Trump’s second term, says Dr. Nolette, who keeps a database of state litigation against the federal government.

Why suing Trump may pack less punch

Republican appointees now dominate the U.S. Supreme Court, with three justices appointed by Mr. Trump. The once and future president also made inroads with the historically liberal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit: Trump appointees now make up more than a third of the San Francisco-based court. Most cases are heard by a randomly chosen three-judge panel, which ups the chances that a Republican appointee, or, more importantly, two, are hearing a case.

The president-elect is also battle-tested and more experienced after his first term. Trump 1.0 had a “scattershot” quality, with many lawsuits lost on procedural grounds, said Governor Newsom in a video message just days after the election. This time, “he’s going to come harder, he’s going to come faster – executive orders Day One,” said Governor Newsom. “We’re not going to be caught flat-footed.”

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump regularly bashed the Golden State as a failure under Democratic leadership. “Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California,” he posted after the governor announced the special legislative session. Mr. Trump suggests he’ll take on everything from California’s laws prohibiting voter I.D. to its policies around water management, vehicle emissions standards, undocumented immigrants, and gender-related issues in schools. He has also threatened to withhold disaster aid.

But Governor Newsom says California will “stand firm” if the president-elect makes good on his threats. In his proclamation for the special session, he said that he and the attorney general have been preparing for a possible Trump administration for more than a year, gearing up for an expected federal “assault” on reproductive freedom, climate change policies, protections for immigrant families and children, and disaster aid.

He’s not going this alone. Other states have been readying for months, and Mr. Newsom has said that he is looking to build partnerships, as California did during Mr. Trump’s first term.

Litigation shifts and party lines

Multi-state litigation against the federal government goes back to the Reagan era. Still, it exploded in the first Trump administration, with 160 suits filed by state attorneys general, according to Dr. Nolette. He expects the number against the Biden administration to be near that amount, or even top it, due to suits filed up to the eve of Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

The suits result from states chafing against presidents who seek ever more power. Given a trend of executive branch overreach, the state lawsuits often succeed, hitting an extraordinarily high success rate of 83% against the Trump administration and 74% against the Biden government, says Dr. Nolette.

He points to attorneys general and governors in Democratic strongholds such as Washington, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut as states to watch as potential partners for California. All were involved in at least 70 multistate lawsuits against the first Trump administration. But, he says, pay particular attention to Massachusetts and Connecticut because the Boston-based U.S. Court of Appeals covers them for the First Circuit. All of those judges are Democrat appointees.

Some Democratic governors sound more cautious than Mr. Newsom. Katie Hobbs of Arizona – where Trump handily won – says she wants to work closely with the new administration on border issues such as fentanyl, but not on areas that she says could hurt Arizona families, like mass deportations.

Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, where Vice President Kamala Harris won by a wide margin, is launching “Governors Safeguarding Democracy” with blue-state Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The alliance is billed as nonpartisan and pledges to “fortify democracy.” It’s a work in progress, but some Democrats, such as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, which Mr. Trump flipped in November, are not joining. So far, no Republican governors have joined.

Prudent preparedness or “political stunt”

Governor Newsom’s call for a special legislative session is a “political stunt,” says California Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher. Far more pressing are the state’s homeless, cost of living, crime, and insurance crises, he says.

“Instead of actually holding a special session to address those issues, our governor and our attorney general would rather spend more money … on government lawyers to fight Trump,” he says. “It’s completely tone-deaf.”

But Garry South, a longtime Democratic consultant in California, calls the governor’s legal strategy “prudent.” Mr. Newsom would be “negligent” if he didn’t take the legal lead, given the severe impact that something like mass deportations would have on agriculture in California, the nation’s food basket.

“This isn’t going to be California fighting Trump for the sake of fighting Trump,” says Mr. South. “It’s going to be California trying to block moves that he will try to make, which could have dire impacts on the state of our economy and also on the economy of the United States of America.”

Could presidential aspirations also be playing a role here?

“Sure,” says Mr. South. “If there are political benefits, so be it. But someone has to step up to the plate and take this guy on. And I think Newsom is probably better equipped to do that than anyone else that I can see on the horizon.”

Leading the legal resistance will help Mr. Newsom raise his national profile, but “that doesn’t necessarily translate into broader appeal,” says Mark Baldassare, survey director at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. Affordability played a huge role in this election, and as the governor and state attorney general set about defending issues like climate and electric vehicles, “people are going to want to know what are the economic consequences.”