California could follow Abbott’s game plan

If state wants to take administration to court, Texas lessons show the way

WASHINGTON — Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general who became governor, liked to brag about his devotion to fighting the Obama administration, describing his workday as “I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and then I go home.”

Now that Donald Trump is about to take power, California is preparing for the possibility of becoming a similar center of resistance to the authority of the presidency.

“You could see a progressive or liberal attorney general in California saying the same thing — that ‘I come in every day and I sue the Trump administration,’ ” said Thomas McGarity, a University of Texas law professor who watched closely as his state sued the Obama administration nearly 50 times.

Xavier Becerra, the Los Angeles congressman nominated by California Gov. Jerry Brown this week to be the state’s new attorney general, relishes the opportunity.

“If you want to take on a forward-leaning state that is prepared to defend its rights and interests, then come at us,” Becerra said.

While overwhelmingly Democratic California is on opposite sides from Texas on many of the issues, California can learn lessons from the “modest success” that Texas had in battling the power of the president, McGarity said

Building a blueprint

Current California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who is leaving the position in January to join the U.S. Senate, said the state attorney general’s office is working on an analysis of what Trump might do and how the state could counter it.

“We’re already starting an analysis of that because we have a history in California of standing up in the face of federal opposition, standing up for our values and our principles,” Harris said in an interview. “We’ve done that on a number of issues that range from marijuana to same-sex marriage.”

But making plans is tough since “I don’t know that any of us really knows what exactly he intends to do, compared to what he said in the campaign,” Harris said.

Trump promised in the campaign to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, a law embraced by California more than any other state, with 1.3 million residents enrolled through its insurance exchange and 3.8 million added to the Medi-Cal program for low-income people.

While California has led the nation on environmental issues, Trump dis- missed climate change as a Chinese hoax and pledged to slash environmental regulations.

Trump promised increased deportations and no federal funding for “sanctuary cities” where local police don’t ask about immigration status, a list that includes Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Golden State parallels

For Republican officials in Texas, it was good politics to sue the Obama administration.

Texas attorney general Abbott used the job as a springboard to the governor’s office.

“It was something an elected attorney general could do to say ‘Look — we’re fighting the evil federal agencies,’ ” McGarity said.

There are parallels in California, where Becerra must run for election in 2018 if he wants to remain attorney general.

Becerra could become the national face of Democratic resistance to Trump if he uses the state’s legal power to battle the president, potentially setting himself up to run for governor or the U.S. Senate.

State attorneys general have a lot of power because they have legal standing to sue the federal government that private citizens and advocacy groups often lack, McGarity said.

“It’s undoubtedly an advantage that California will be using as it attempts to challenge the Trump administration,” he said.