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IN THIS ISSUE – “California is a constant, unwavering, immovable force to be reckoned with” Rob Bonta, state attorney general, on opposition to the Trump Administration
- California’s Relationship with Trump Administration 2.0? First Time Around, State Sued Feds Every 12 Days
- Governor Calls Legislative Special Session for Legal Funding v. Trump
- Newsom’s Political Future on National Dem Agenda
- Corporate & Union Interests Spent $100 Million on Legislative Campaigns
- MediCal Expands “An Already Massive Safety Net”
- CA Secretary of State Election Results
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) curates California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique client service.
FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOV. 8, 2024
California’s Relationship with Trump Administration 2.0?
First Time Around, State Sued Feds Every 12 Days
CalMatters
During the four years that Donald Trump was president the first time, California sued him about every 12 days on average.
Now that he’s returning to office, Democratic state leaders are preparing potential new lawsuits.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta has been developing plans to defend California policies since the summer, when polls showed a good chance that Trump would win the election. Bonta has said his team has preemptively written briefs on a variety of issues in preparation of what’s to come.
“During the previous Trump administration, California (Department of Justice) fought hard against Trump’s rollbacks and unlawful policies that infringed on Californians’ rights…and would do so again if need be,” the attorney general’s office said in an unsigned email response before the election.
California sued the Trump administration 123 times and scored major victories. Among them: California defended the state’s clean air rules, preserved the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) that benefits undocumented people who came to the United States as children, and protected the Affordable Care Act.
Those issues — the environment, immigration and health care — could once again be the main battle lines in the lawsuits that are expected to be waged between California’s Democratic administration and Trump’s White House.
Gov. Gavin Newsom foreshadowed potential disputes in a statement Wednesday.
“California will seek to work with the incoming president — but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law,” he said. “Federalism is the cornerstone of our democracy. It’s the United STATES of America.”
This time, some experts anticipate that Trump will bring forward a more methodical approach to policy.
They point to Project 2025, a 900-page document by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation that lays out a conservative agenda. While Trump tried to distance himself from the blueprint during his campaign, former members of his administration contributed to the report. There is also some overlap between what he’s proposed and what’s outlined in the document, such as mass deportations and overhauling the Justice Department.
In his victory speech, Trump signaled policy objectives that would likely conflict with California’s goals, such as expanding oil production and turning the nation’s public health agencies over to vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — although in what capacity is still unclear.
“He’s going to help make America healthy again,” Trump said about Kennedy during his speech. “I just said: ‘But, Bobby, leave the oil to me. Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. Other than that, go have a good time.’”
While Democratic leaders vow to uphold their values, they may be more careful in choosing their battles this time around, said Matt Lesenyie, a political science professor at Cal State Long Beach.
“Some of the legal challenges are substantive, like we want to regulate greenhouse gases. Other ones may be more symbolic, and that’s not to trivialize cultural or gender identity, but one thing that has been clear, at least to me in this Trump win, is that those cultural issues are motivating his voters,” he said.
Because it is a large state, California also has power to negotiate with the federal government.
“Faced with near-total Republican control of the federal government, Sacramento may think the state does better by negotiating,” said David A. Carrillo, executive director of Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center.
“That affects whether California’s strategy is to fight on all fronts, or to focus on leveraging its size and market power in making its own domestic and international agreements — call it soft secession.”
By most accounts, health care policies are expected to be contested again.
In his first term, Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed, but he did slash some provisions of the landmark health law.
He also influenced the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that protected abortion rights, by appointing three conservative Supreme Court justices.
In 2019 the Trump administration also blocked clinics and providers that offer or refer patients to abortion services from receiving federal family planning dollars. California sued. The Biden administration later reversed Trump’s rule. Any similar restrictions on abortion would certainly prompt California to respond with litigation again.
Carrillo anticipates that the Trump administration might move to restrict mifepristone, one of the medications used to induce abortion, by using a 19th Century law known as the Comstock Act.
“One fight California probably can’t avoid is abortion, specifically access to mifepristone,” Carrillo said. “For example, the federal Comstock Act in general bans sending something for ‘abortion-causing purposes’ in the mail.
“Expect a major legal battle if federal prosecutors start enforcing that to prevent interstate shipping of medical abortion drugs or contraceptives,” he said.
Others say they also expect a fight from states if Trump attempts to make drastic cuts to the Medicaid program. About 14.7 million low-income Californians rely on Medicaid for health coverage. The program is also known as Medi-Cal in California.
Project 2025, for example, proposes to cap what the federal government pays for the Medicaid program, which is funded by both the feds and the states. This means that states would receive a fixed amount regardless of their costs. In the health policy world this is referred to as “block grants” or “per capita caps.”
“So that’s a big cut, a big cost shift to states, and states would have no choice but to either raise taxes substantially or far more likely, shrink their Medicaid programs to a great degree, which means more uninsured, more people go without needed care,” said Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy.
Park says one key difference between a second Trump administration and the first is that Trump and his team could have a clearer vision of what they want to do with health care programs this time around. That includes the potential for things like imposing work requirements to qualify for Medi-Cal or slashing aid in Obamacare marketplaces, making it less affordable to sign up.
https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/11/california-vs-trump-lawsuits/
Governor Calls Legislative Special Session for Legal Funding v. Trump
Governor’s Office & CalMatters
Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued a proclamation convening a special session of the California Legislature to safeguard California values and fundamental rights in the face of an incoming Trump administration. The special session will focus on bolstering California legal resources to protect civil rights, reproductive freedom, climate action, and immigrant families.
This is the first of several actions by the Newsom Administration, in partnership with the Legislature, as the Governor begins shoring up California’s defenses against an incoming federal administration that has threatened the state on multiple fronts.
Taking the feds to court doesn’t come cheap. The session, which will begin Dec. 2 when the new Legislature is sworn in, will mostly focus on approving funding for California’s Department of Justice and other state agencies — perhaps as much as $100 million — to file “robust affirmative litigation.”
Attorney General Rob Bonta doubled down on the effort at a press event Thursday in San Francisco. Standing next to a “Progress will prevail” sign, Bonta said California is a “constant, unwavering, immovable force to be reckoned with.”
Bonta: “We’ve lived through Trump 1.0. … We know to take Trump at his word when he says he’ll roll back environmental protections, go after our immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities, attack our civil rights and restrict access to essential reproductive care.”
Republican lawmakers were quick to denounce the special session, calling it “immature and divisive” and a “publicity charade.” Corona Assemblymember Bill Essayli, who often trolls Democrats, said Congress should convene as soon as Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20 and cut off all federal funding to California over immigration.
GOP Senate leader Brian Jones of San Diego, in a statement: “The governor’s job is to run California, not push his political agenda across the country. Newsom is clearly using his position to bolster his name ID for his dream of running for President in 2028.”
MORE:
Governor’s Media Release:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/11/07/special-session-ca-values/
CalMatters:
Newsom’s Political Future on National Dem Agenda
Politico & CalMatters
Matt Rodriguez, a Democrat consultant who worked on presidential campaigns for Barack Obama, Dick Gephardt and Bill Bradley, said a Newsom campaign would be stuck with a challenging message: “If you didn’t love the first movie, you’re gonna love the sequel.”
“Being from California is a bit of a millstone around people’s necks and that will make Democrats skittish,” Rodriguez said.
Newsom won’t be leaving the spotlight anytime soon. With two years remaining in his governorship, he is poised to return to the resister-in-chief that he was during Trump’s first term — a move that could boost his appeal to loyal Democrats even beyond California’s borders.
“What else is there? If you’re a Democrat today, you’re wiping your tears away,” said Democrat consultant Andrew Acosta. “They’re not going to roll over and say, ‘Well, I guess I need to give Donald Trump a chance.’”
Whether the relevance that comes with being Trump’s foil translates into votes outside of the most devoted MSNBC viewers is far less certain.
Once the fog of this election lifts, Democrats face a reckoning over the message that will carry them forward, especially as they continue to lose ground with traditionally Democratic working class and nonwhite voters.
The party found itself in this position in 1988, after a third straight presidential election loss, and ascended again with Bill Clinton by co-opting conservative messaging on crime and the economy.
If the argument to pivot to the center wins out, then a staunch liberal like Newsom — whose gubernatorial record includes a moratorium on the death penalty and an executive order phasing out the sale of gas-powered cars — could be seen as too big of a risk for Democratic primary voters.
“There will be a lot of soul searching,” Acosta said. “The California baggage does become problematic.”
Jennifer Jacobs, a Republican consultant who worked across the country this year to elect Trump and GOP candidates, said voters everywhere are tired of the politics and governance that California has come to represent: high gas prices and housing costs, widespread homelessness and retail theft, mass illegal immigration.
A Los Angeles Times poll in February found that half of American adults believe California is in decline, and nearly half of Republicans said California was not American.
“We just had an entire nation say we don’t want to be like California,” said Jacobs, a San Diego native who like many other residents of the state is planning to move to Las Vegas in the coming months.
Newsom himself has struggled with declining job approval among California voters, who appeared to further repudiate the governor this week when they overwhelmingly passed a tough-on-crime measure that he vocally opposed and maneuvered to remove from the ballot.
“He is California,” Jacobs said. “I hope he runs for president. It will be the biggest trouncing you’ve ever seen.”
Of course, the next election is four years away. There’s still plenty of time for the mood to change, especially if another messy Trump administration turns off voters and pushes them back toward Democrats, further upending assumptions about their priorities.
Though Newsom hasn’t been on a ballot in two years — and even then his reelection campaign as governor was an afterthought.
But the California Democrat has quickly constructed one of the country’s premier digital operations, showering candidates and causes with nearly $21.5 million in the 2024 campaign, according to election-cycle totals.
Newsom raised more than $15.7 million for Democrats in the presidential race, with the money flowing to the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and a leading super PAC.
Newsom did it through a mix of digital solicitations via his own lists and in-person fundraising events he hosted for Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.
Newsom’s own political activity has long been viewed through a presidential campaign prism, and has led to constant speculation about what he might do after leaving office in two years. In addition to his digital outfit and super PAC, Campaign for Democracy, he maintains close relationships with many of his state’s big donors, was a top surrogate for Biden and hit the road for Harris.
Since briefly fighting for his political survival in 2021, Newsom has become one of his party’s most prolific digital fundraisers for other candidates. He’s waded into big fights and exponentially grown his lists of donor emails and phone numbers — prized assets to communicate directly to small-dollar supporters while expanding his profile far outside California.
There are few points of comparison in terms of fundraising — particularly because Newsom built his operation without a prior run for president, tapping into his own wealth or having a competitive campaign of his own. Transportation Secretary and 2020 presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg raised more than $15.3 million for the Harris Victory Fund.
Newsom’s rainmaker status among Democrats started organically, as he faced a recall that, at first, looked like a long-shot, became more serious and then waned as a threat. Newsom had brought on digital operative Tim Tagaris, who stood up Bernie Sanders’ pioneering fundraising operations in 2016, then helped the California governor grow the number of email addresses at his disposal from 250,000 before the recall and 6 million by the end of 2022 to more than 17 million addresses today.
Newsom also increased his list of phone numbers — used to send text message solicitations — from 1.5 million two years ago to nearly 11 million.
The period covered everything from launching a gun-control constitutional amendment to debating Ron DeSantis on Fox News to running a series of provocative TV ads in red states that lit up the white hot culture wars over abortion and other issues.
He also focused on downballot races for Congress and governor’s offices.
Newsom’s total includes $2.2 million for Senate races as Democrats face an uphill fight to retain control of the chamber. Newsom raised $383,166 for Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, $370,305 for Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, $260,611 for Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, $230,994 for Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and $214,453 for Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada.
He also took in between about $150,000 and $100,000 apiece for Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and Senate candidates Ruben Gallego in Arizona and Colin Allred in Texas.
Newsom helped raise $625,818 for governors races, including $262,086 for North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who is expected to win on Tuesday, and $136,161 for Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who was reelected last fall.
And Newsom brought in more than $2 million for House races, mostly in California where Democrats are battling to regain the House majority but not exactly bear-hugging Newsom in swing districts.
MORE:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/05/newsom-fundraising-digital-harris-campaign-00187396
Corporate & Union Interests Spent $100 Million on Legislative Campaigns
CalMatters
Nearly $100 million has been spent this year by corporate- and labor-funded committees in California legislative races, including more than $42 million in just the last month.
These independent expenditure committees are becoming a bigger financial force in legislative campaigns across the state: Since Sept. 1, they have invested $51.5 million. That’s 29% more than over the same period in 2022, when the $40 million spent was 25% more than in 2020 and nearly twice as much as 2018.
Unlike direct contributions to legislative campaigns, there is no limit on how much these outside groups can spend, as long as they don’t coordinate with a candidate. The money is mostly used to buy ads, mailers and text messages, often attacking the candidate’s opponent.
Uber is the largest single source of independent expenditures; the ride-share company’s political action committee has reported spending more than $7 million, about 7% of all the outside money.
For instance, it has invested more than $443,000 into a contentious state Assembly race in Los Angeles, siding with Democrat Sade Elhawary over another Democrat, Efren Martinez, for the open seat.
The oil industry is the second largest source of independent expenditures, dropping more than $4.7 million through a committee — called the Coalition to Restore California’s Middle Class, Including Energy, Manufacturing and Technology Companies who Produce Gas, Oil, Jobs and Pay Taxes — that has received millions from Chevron, Valero, Marathon and other oil companies.
And while the oil industry committee is the second largest spender overall, it’s by far the most generous in the campaign’s final weeks. Since Sept. 1, the committee has put more than $4 million into legislative races.
The next biggest spender since Sept. 1 — a group of nurses and educators — went all in on one race, putting up $2.7 million to support Michelle Chambers, a Democrat running in state Senate District 35 in Southern California against fellow Democrat Laura Richardson.
The spending by these independent committees, often more than $100,000 in a particular race, can impact the outcome, as the amounts can be more than what the candidates themselves are spending.
The committees have spent in support of 172 candidates, while opposing more than 60. Richardson has been the biggest target, with more than $2.5 million opposing her. She has only spent about $428,000 on her own campaign.
Ranking second is Democrat Kipp Mueller, with more than $2.3 million spent against him in a Southern California state Senate campaign against Republican Suzette Martinez Valladares. Martinez ranks third, with nearly $2 million spent against him.
Uber has spent money to support or oppose 26 candidates, including more than $274,000 to support Richardson. The largest target of the tech giant’s money: More than $990,000 to oppose Democrat Kathryn Lybarger, who lost in the March primary in an East Bay state Senate race.
Uber has been a big player in California campaigns before: It, Lyft, DoorDash and others spent more than $200 million to get voters to approve Proposition 22 in 2020 to exempt their workers from a state labor law.
With several charts:
Trump, Newsom Have Some Common Water Policies
Politico
President-elect Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom want you to believe they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum on California water. But their policies aren’t drastically different — and both lean toward the Republican-leaning farmers of the Central Valley.
On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to force Newsom to turn on the faucet for water-strapped farmers if he is elected. Meanwhile, Newsom today finalized rules that insulate the state’s endangered fish protections from federal changes.
But he’s also advancing controversial proposals to store and move around more water, a perennial ask of the agricultural industry, and easing pumping limits meant to protect an endangered fish in order to send more water south to parched farms.
Newsom’s positioning has put the otherwise green-leaning governor squarely on the foe list for environmental groups and garnered him credit from unlikely sources.
“At least as it relates to water, I think Gov. Newsom and former President Trump have very similar objectives,” said Tom Birmingham, the former general manager of the San Joaquin Valley’s Westlands Water District who maintains close ties to former Trump administration officials. “They are not dramatically different.”
Both Newsom and Trump have long made overtures toward the state’s agriculture-heavy, deep-pocketed Central Valley, which reliably votes Republican in contrast to most of the rest of California. But Trump’s alignment with Republican lawmakers from the region who have long bashed environmental regulations — even if he stands no chance of scoring California’s electoral college votes — has backed Newsom, who’s leaned into his role as chief Trump antagonist, into a corner.
They took opposite tacks on the jointly-owned state and federal system of pumps, canals and reservoirs that moves water from Northern California to Southern California’s cities and the Central Valley’s farms. In his first term, Trump officials rewrote the system’s operations plan, only for Newsom to withdraw the state from the plan and sue the feds.
But Newsom’s own version of the plan isn’t all that different. Most water districts have supported the new plan, though some may see slightly less water, especially in dry years. But environmental groups have pointed out the plan would likely increase the number of fish killed at the pumps and nicknamed Newsom’s plan “Trump-lite.”
“From our perspective, this governor has been more hostile to salmon and the Bay Delta than any governor in 40 years,” said Barry Nelson, a long-time environmental advocate in the region now consulting for the Golden State Salmon Association, a group representing fishing and environmental interests.
While Trump has pitched his policies as a way to restore the Central Valley’s economy (and grind an ax against the tiny endangered Delta smelt), Newsom has pitched his as climate adaptation, as the state expects a ten percent decline in water supplies by 2040. He’s embraced feel-good practices like groundwater recharge, but also big infrastructure projects — and neither a Trump win nor a Kamala Harris win will change their direction much.
Nelson calls the projects currently moving forward “the Big Three”: There’s the Sites reservoir off the American River, which would be the first major dam in California in decades; updated water quality rules for the Bay-Delta, which Newsom wants to let some water districts bypass if they pay for large-scale habitat restoration; and the Delta Conveyance Project, Newsom’s version of the decadesold proposal to reroute water under the crumbling Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Southern California.
For Newsom, the projects are legacy-building; he’s said he wanted the tunnel ready for construction before the end of his term in 2026.
MediCal Expands “An Already Massive Safety Net”
California Healthline
California this year took the final step in opening Medi-Cal, its Medicaid program, to every eligible resident regardless of immigration status. It’s a significant expansion for an already massive safety net program.
Medi-Cal’s annual spending now stands at $157 billion, serving about 15 million low-income residents, more than a third of Californians. Of those, about 1.5 million are immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization, costing an estimated $6.4 billion, according to the Department of Health Care Services. They have been gradually added to the program as the state lifted legal residency as an eligibility requirement for children in 2016, young adults ages 19-25 in 2020, people 50 and older in 2022, and all remaining adults in January.
As California’s public insurance roll swells, advocates for immigrants praise the Golden State for an expansion that has helped reduce the uninsured rate to a record low 6.4%. Providers and hospitals, however, caution that the state hasn’t expanded its workforce adequately or increased Medi-Cal payments sufficiently, leaving some enrollees unable to find providers to see them in a timely manner — if at all.
“Coverage does not necessarily mean access,” said Isabel Becerra, CEO and president of the Coalition of Orange County Community Health Centers, during an Oct. 2 health policy summit in Los Angeles. “There’s a workforce shortage. We’re all fighting for those doctors. We’re fighting with each other for those doctors.”
Though the state has raised Medi-Cal payments for primary care, maternity care, and mental health services to 87.5% of what Medicare pays, private insurance still tends to pay more, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.
A ballot initiative this month could guarantee revenue from a tax on managed-care plans goes toward raising the pay of health care providers who serve Medi-Cal patients.
Some believe the next chapter for covering immigrants will require more than Medi-Cal.
Democratic state Assembly member Joaquin Arambula in 2022 proposed legislation to allow the approximately 520,000 uninsured unauthorized residents who earn more than 138% of the federal poverty level to apply for state-subsidized health coverage through Covered California, the state’s health exchange. The bill, however, died in committee this year.
The final installment of the “Faces of Medi-Cal” series looks at how Medi-Cal has affected its newest enrollees. They include Vanessa López Zamora, who is finally getting treated for hepatitis and cirrhosis but has trouble seeing a gastroenterologist close to home; Douglas Lopez, an entertainment park worker who credits dental coverage for boosting his well-being; and Daniel Garcia, who suffers from gout but has given up his search for a primary care provider. All spoke to KFF Health News in Spanish after recently becoming eligible for Medi-Cal.
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