Leaders in Democratic States Begin Planning to Fight Trump Policies

Governors such as Gavin Newsom of California and JB Pritzker of Illinois are calling on state lawmakers to gird for battle, particularly in the courts.

By Shawn HublerJonathan Weisman and Mike Baker

Shawn Hubler reported from Sacramento, Jonathan Weisman from Chicago and Mike Baker from Seattle.

Nov. 7, 2024

Updated 8:06 p.m. ET

As Donald J. Trump savored a sweeping victory in the presidential race, Democratic leaders in at least three state capitals have begun mobilizing to push back against potential Republican policies on issues like reproductive health and the environment.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom called lawmakers on Thursday into a legislative special session next month “to safeguard California values and fundamental rights in the face of an incoming Trump administration.”

In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker said on Thursday he would ask his state’s legislators, possibly as soon as next week, to address potential threats from a second Trump term. “You come for my people,” Mr. Pritzker said at a news conference, “you come through me.”

In Washington, Bob Ferguson, the attorney general and governor-elect, said on Thursday he hoped not to take an adversarial role. But he said that his legal team had been preparing for months in anticipation of a second Trump term, including a line-by-line review of the Project 2025 plans touted by Mr. Trump’s allies. “I hope to God, I pray that things we are talking about don’t come to pass,” Mr. Ferguson said.

The announcements echoed a vow on Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York to “honor” the election results and to try to work with Mr. Trump, but also to fight any efforts to curtail reproductive freedoms, expand gun rights or curb environmental regulations.

At a news conference, Ms. Hochul addressed Mr. Trump directly: “If you try to harm New Yorkers or roll back their rights, I will fight you every step of the way.”

Democratic governors have aggressively opposed Mr. Trump since 2017, when he entered office. Several have positioned themselves nationally as leaders in a fight against his agenda, which they view both as extreme and as a threat to the values of their constituents. Mr. Newsom and Mr. Pritzker, in particular, have risen as standard-bearers for their party and as potential presidential contenders in their own right.

Other Democratic-led states are expected to to join the effort, especially given the federal power that Republicans could wield starting next year, particularly if they win the House in addition to the Senate and the White House. Unlike in 2016, when Mr. Trump won in the electoral college but lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, the former president is expected to arrive in Washington emboldened with a sweeping victory and a mandate.

“I will govern by a simple motto,” Mr. Trump told supporters in Florida on Tuesday. “Promises made, promises kept.”

Much of the burden is likely to be borne by larger and more populous states, such as California. A contingency plan in the event of Mr. Trump’s re-election has been underway for more than a year in Sacramento, involving not only the governor’s office but also legislators and state regulatory bodies.

“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement on Thursday. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond.”

California has nearly 39 million residents, and the economy is so large — dwarfing those in all but a handful of countries — that it can move markets and steer national policy. During the four years that Mr. Trump was previously in office, the state sued his administration more than 120 times.

The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said that he and his staff had been conferring with other attorneys general for months and had prepared detailed legal challenges should the former president return to office. “We won’t be flat-footed come January,” he said.

California also has more to lose from a Trump administration than most states do. In a proclamation calling for the special session, Mr. Newsom said that the state could suffer “significant and immediate” consequences from this week’s presidential outcome.

His list of concerns included attempts by Mr. Trump to limit access to medication abortion; to dismantle clean-vehicle policies and longstanding environmental protections; to repeal immigration policies such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program; to withhold disaster response funding and victim assistance as political retribution; and to “politicize grant programs to commandeer state and local governmental resources for federal purposes.”

Mr. Trump’s stated agenda for the environment alone could threaten California climate policies — such as the state’s rules on vehicle emissions — that for decades have helped set the pace for the rest of the world. The president-elect and other Republican leaders also have denounced policies that underpin the social fabric in California.

During the campaign, for instance, Mr. Trump said he would pursue mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He also criticized California proposals and policies that provide benefits to those immigrants; the state currently provides Medicaid-level benefits to low-income residents regardless of immigration status.

Conservatives oppose the state’s constitutional protections for abortion rights and contraception, and they have resented Mr. Newsom’s efforts to provide reproductive services to women in states with abortion bans. California’s gun laws are among the nation’s toughest, and they are routinely tested through lawsuits that wend through federal courts.

During his first term, Mr. Trump sided with California’s agricultural industry in the perennial tug of war over scarce water supplies in the state. In August, he suggested that, if elected, he would withhold federal wildfire aid if the state did not deliver more water to farmers.

Mr. Trump and Republicans also could seek to upend protections for the state’s transgender residents. In July, Mr. Newsom signed a law that prohibited school districts from forcing educators to notify parents if their children ask to use different names or pronouns. The state has engaged in ongoing battles with conservative-led districts, and Republican leaders could seek to intervene.

Local leaders in California have also geared up for potential legal battles, particularly around the likelihood that Mr. Trump seeks to make good on his campaign promises to conduct mass deportations.

In San Francisco, which sued the first Trump administration over its efforts to pressure police into assisting with federal immigration enforcement, the city attorney, David Chiu, said on Thursday he was again planning to “use every legal tool at our disposal to defend our city.”

And in Los Angeles, where more than a third of residents are foreign-born, Mayor Karen Bass sought to reassure the public.

“No matter where you were born, how you came to this country, how you worship or who you love, Los Angeles will stand with you,” she said in a statement on Wednesday. “This is not a time for despair, this is a time for action. I’ve spoken with leaders across the city, the state and the country. We are ready.”

But other Democratic states have much to protect, too, or laws similar to those in California. During the first Trump administration, Mr. Ferguson’s office in Washington State was involved in dozens of lawsuits against the federal government. His office has said that 55 of those were victorious, while only three of them failed.

A senior aide to Mr. Pritzker, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss planning, said the governor was looking at ways to protect the records of women who come to Illinois for abortions, down to the granular details of E-ZPass payments on toll roads or cellphone calls. Such laws would almost certainly be challenged in the courts, the aide said, but Mr. Pritzker’s chief legal counsel and policy staff are examining how best to pass legislation that would hold up in court.

The governor’s staff is also looking at ways to protect immigrants — undocumented or documented — from the sweeps and deportation orders that Mr. Trump has promised to conduct as soon as he is back in office.

AdverAnd, the aide said, Mr. Pritzker is looking at a package of bills that would codify state environmental regulations into state law to strengthen them against any federal challenge.

In 2019, California lawmakers attempted a similar tactic, passing a bill that essentially would have locked Obama administration standards for air, water, endangered species and climate into state statutes, aiming to legally buttress California against Trump administration rollbacks. Mr. Newsom vetoed it amid fierce opposition by California agricultural interests, questioning whether it would be effective.

States have increasingly deployed lawsuits with success, particularly as political polarization has increased. According to a database maintained by Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University, Republican attorneys general have so far filed about 60 lawsuits against the Biden administration, winning about 76 percent of them. During the first Trump administration, Democratic attorneys general filed about 160 lawsuits, winning about 83 percent of the time.

“I think that what happened during the first Trump administration is going to repeat itself,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

“There’s a more conservative court today than when Trump took office in 2017, and I think this Trump term is going to be more aggressive, earlier, in pushing the conservative agenda, but I also think states will be equally aggressive in pushing back early on.”

Heather Knight contributed reporting from San Francisco.

Shawn Hubler is based in Sacramento and covers California news, policy trends and personalities. She has been a journalist for more than four decades. More about Shawn Hubler

Jonathan Weisman is a politics writer, covering campaigns with an emphasis on economic and labor policy. He is based in Chicago. More about Jonathan Weisman

Mike Baker is a national reporter for The Times, based in Seattle. More about Mike Bakertisement

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