article

President Trump visits the burned areas of Paradise, California on Saturday, November 17, with state and city leaders, including Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom.

SACRAMENTO, California – California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, on Thursday called on lawmakers to call a special session later this year to protect the state’s progressive policies on climate change, reproductive rights and immigration ahead of a new presidency. Trump’s.

The move — a day after the former president soundly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race — effectively reignited California’s pushback against conservative policies that state Democratic leaders began during the first Trump administration.

“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we will not stand idly by,” Newsom, who reportedly has ambitions on the national stage, said in a statement. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond. We are prepared to fight in court and will do whatever it takes to make sure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.”

Newsom’s office told The Associated Press that the governor and lawmakers are ready to “endorse Trump” California’s state laws. His announcement Thursday called on the Legislature to give the attorney general’s office more funding to fight federal challenges when they meet in December.

California’s move is part of a growing discussion among Democratic state officials across the country seeking to protect policies that face threats under Trump. Other blue states are also moving quickly to prepare game plans and expect a tougher fight this time with a Republican-dominated Senate and possibly the House.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James said senior staff plan to meet regularly to coordinate legal strategies.

“Our team will do everything we need to do to identify any potential threats to these rights that we hold dear in New York State and to protect New Yorkers,” Hochul said at a news conference Wednesday.

Hochul said he has created a task force focused on developing policy responses to “the key areas that are most likely to face threats from the Trump administration,” such as “reproductive rights, civil rights, immigration, gun safety, labor rights, LGBTQ rights, and our rights. environmental justice”.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who as the state’s attorney general filed dozens of lawsuits against Trump during his first term, said she “will have to see if he follows through on what he promised and followed through on what he looks at Project 2025 or other things.”

Attorney General Andrea Campbell said she and other attorneys general are “absolutely clear that President-elect Trump has told us exactly what he intends to do as president.”

In Chicago, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said he is working with other governors to find ways to strengthen reproductive rights, among other things.

“Chaos, vengeance and disorder radiated from the White House the last time Donald Trump occupied it,” Pritzker said at a news conference Thursday. “Maybe this time it can be different. But if it is not, Illinois will remain a place of stability and competent government.”

After Trump’s victory, Newsom vowed to work with the president-elect, but added, “Make no mistake, we intend to stand with states across the nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law.”

California has been the home of Trump’s so-called resistance during his tenure, and Trump often describes California as representing everything he sees wrong with America.

Trump called the Democratic governor “New-scum” during a campaign stop in Southern California last month and relentlessly criticized the Democratic stronghold and the nation’s most populous state for the high number of illegal immigrants in the US, its homeless population and its thicket of regulations.

Trump has also waded into a water rights battle for the endangered delta smelt that has pitted environmentalists against farmers and threatened to withdraw federal aid to a state increasingly threatened by wildfires of vegetation.

In a speech Wednesday morning, Trump vowed to follow through on his campaign promise to carry out the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and prosecute his political enemies.

Democrats, who hold every statewide office in California and have commanding margins in the Legislature and congressional delegation, outnumber registered Republicans nearly 2 to 1 statewide, and Harris easily carried the state in her losing presidential bid .

Newsom and Democratic lawmakers said they are acting now to protect the state policies that have made him a leader in the nation.

“I’ve learned a lot about former President Trump in his first term — he’s petty, he’s vindictive and he’ll do whatever it takes to get his way, no matter how dangerous the politics,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire. in a statement. . “California has come too far and accomplished too much to simply surrender and accept his dystopian vision for America.”

Newsom called California a sanctuary for people from other states seeking abortions. The state passed dozens of laws to protect access to abortion, including allocating $20 million in taxpayer money to help pay for patients in other states to travel to California to have an abortion. Newsom too lead a coalition of 20 Democratic governors launched in 2023 to strengthen access to abortion.

The state was also the first to require all new cars, trucks and SUVs sold in California to be electric, hydrogen-powered or plug-in hybrids by 2035 and to give state regulators the power to penalize oil companies for making too much money. California too expand state-funded health care to all low-income residents regardless of their immigration status.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office has spent the past year reviewing over 120 processes the state filed during Trump’s first term in preparation for the new federal actions.

With Trump’s victory in the White House and California’s assumed role in renewed leadership of the resistance movement, Newsom is also bound to be elevated to the short list of any presidential consideration for 2028, said political science professor David McCuan at Sonoma State University.

The governor, who will not be eligible to run for governor again when his term ends in January 2027, will have the next two years to prove himself an effective antidote to the GOP while maintaining a relationship of work with the president-elect.

“He wants to be seen as a political revivalist, and that puts him front and center,” McCuan said.

___

Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, Steve LeBlanc in Boston and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to the report.