California's many lawsuits against Trump saved the state millions, DOJ says

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California wound up with more money challenging the first Trump administration than it spent, the state Department of Justice said.

With state leaders bracing for a new round of legal fights with the president-elect’s administration, the attorney general’s office said it spent nearly $42 million on litigation involving the Trump team from 2017 to 2021. That total included the resources spent defending California laws from federal lawsuits.

But the department reported that the federal government reimbursed California nearly $60 million in federal grants over two years during Trump’s tenure after the state successfully challenged the Trump administration’s effort to withhold public safety funding from sanctuary cities.

With Trump returning to the White House Jan. 20, Gov. Gavin Newsom moved preemptively to again strengthen the state’s legal resources. He called for a special session after Trump’s victory to protect the state’s progressive policies that have already been targeted by the president-elect. That session begins Monday.

It’s not clear how much the governor or the Legislature will seek during the upcoming December special session. Also unclear is whether California will recapture the cost of challenging the federal government and defending state laws during a second Trump term.

During the first Trump administration, the state’s attorney general’s office filed several federal lawsuits in the Northern District of California against the U.S. government’s efforts to withhold public safety funding from cities and counties that decline to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

In fiscal year 2017-18, California nearly lost $28 million in federal funding over the issue, until the attorney general sued the federal government. The state recovered a similarly sized grant the following year.

“To California’s critics of our lawsuits against the president who argue that we should surrender to Donald Trump’s bully playbook, I offer another 28.3 million reasons why we won’t,” said then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

During Trump’s first term, the state attorney general’s office requested additional funding from the Legislature to expand its Legal Services Division to defend California from a “hostile Federal government.”

This time, Attorney General Rob Bonta also appears eager to jump into the legal fray when the president-elect takes office again in January.

“Preparation is the best antidote,” Bonta said at a press conference days after Trump won the presidential election. “No matter what the incoming Administration has in store, California will keep moving forward.”

The attorney general’s office pointed to several examples of successful lawsuits that resulted in saving for California.

The department said it recovered $850,000 from the federal government after challenging the Trump administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The department said the lawsuit ensured California would continue receiving billions of dollars in federal funding each year.

One of the biggest savings, the attorney general’s office said, was a lawsuit that forced the U.S. Department of Energy under Trump to reverse efforts to roll back four energy efficiency rules. The department expected these rules to save $8.4 billion in energy costs over three decades.

_____