See you in court, state tells Trump
Suing the feds: Becerra boasts of doing it most
Xavier Becerra was appointed California’s attorney general in the same month that Donald Trump was sworn in as president. While Trump has devoted considerable time since then to denouncing politicians and judges in California, Becerra has been taking him to court. Repeatedly.
The former Democratic congressman, elected to a new fouryear term in November as the state’s top law enforcement officer, filed his 55th and 56th suits against the Trump administration last week, according to his office’s tabulation. Becerra’s latest challenges to Trump targeted his repeal of President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan and Trump’s new “public charge” immigration policy.
In his 2½ years in office, Becerra has filed more suits against Trump than any other state attorney general, averaging nearly two per month. Some focus on California concerns, like the state’s strong standards for auto emissions, while others have a nationwide reach, like the rights of pregnant women or transgender soldiers.
Asked about the profusion of lawsuits, Becerra said, “My job is to defend the people, the values and the resources of our state. What we do, and what we’ve done more than 50 times, is go up against an administration that’s trying to do things in a lawless way. We didn’t become the fifthlargest economy in the world by sitting back and spectating.”
He has scored some notable victories, like the successful
challenge by California and other states to the administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. He’s also seen some resounding defeats, like the Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump’s ban on U.S. entry from a group of mostly Muslim countries. The high court has also allowed Trump to use federal funds to start building a wall on the Mexican border, over objections from a group of states, including California.
Other important cases remain undecided. The Supreme Court will review the legal status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, Obama’s reprieves from deportation for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. before age 16. Also unresolved are challenges by California and other states to Trump administration regulations barring federally funded medical providers from referring women for abortions, and allowing doctors to withhold care because of religious or moral objections.
And perhaps California’s biggest legal victory has come in a suit filed by the Trump administration, challenging — unsuccessfully, so far — the state’s sanctuary law that limits local governments’ cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Here are some of the significant cases filed by Becerra:
Immigration: The suit challenging Trump’s repeal of Obama’s DACA program was filed in San Francisco federal court in September 2017. A judge kept the program alive in January 2018, ruling that Obama was entitled to decide which groups of unauthorized migrants were priorities for deportation, and a federal appeals court upheld the ruling in November 2018. The Supreme Court agreed in June to take up the administration’s appeal, and will hear arguments in the term that begins in October.
In addition to the Trump administration’s suit over the state sanctuary law, Becerra joined a legal challenge by San Francisco and other local governments to the administration’s attempt to strip federal funds from cities and states with sanctuary policies. A federal judge in San Francisco barred those funding penalties in March.
California challenged the first version of Trump’s travel ban in March 2017. Along with other states, it won rulings from federal judges and appeals courts that the president had exceeded his authority and, according to some courts, had discriminated against Muslims. But the Supreme Court ruled 54 in June 2018 that Trump’s revised order was valid under his broad authority over immigration and national security.
Becerra has filed multiple challenges to the border wall, and won lowercourt rulings that Trump’s order to redirect Pentagon funding to the project violated congressional authority over federal appropriations. But the Supreme Court issued a brief order July 26 allowing the administration to spend $2.5 billion on wall construction in California, Arizona and New Mexico.
Census: The administration’s announcement of a U.S. citizenship question in the 2020 census drew immediate lawsuits in March 2018 from California and a group of states led by New York. Both lawsuits argued that the question was designed to suppress participation by immigrants and reduce congressional representation and federal funding in their states. Lower courts agreed, and the Supreme Court ruled in June that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had failed to give a credible explanation for the addition. Trump then withdrew the plan.
Environment: In addition to the suit over the Clean Power Plan, California led a group of states in a legal challenge in May 2018 to the Trump administration’s plan to roll back Obama’s emissions and pollution standards for 202225 model vehicles. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to hear the case next month.
Another suit challenged the Trump administration’s refusal to ban the widely used farm pesticide chlorpyrifos, which researchers say can cause brain damage in children. A federal appeals court ordered the substance banned within 60 days in August 2018, but the administration has instead issued new regulations and rejected a ban, inviting further lawsuits. California and several other states have prohibited chlorpyrifos within their boundaries.
The administration’s attempt to repeal Obama administration limits on emissions of climatechanging methane gas from oil and natural gas production on federal and tribal lands has been challenged by California, New Mexico, and environmental and tribal groups. A federal judge in San Francisco ordered the limits enforced in February 2018. But the Trump administration then ordered the restrictions lifted, and Becerra filed another suit in September, which is still pending.
Rights: Becerra joined a lawsuit in November 2017 challenging Trump’s ban on military service by virtually all openly transgender people. Federal judges in California and two other states issued injunctions, beginning in December 2017, that blocked enforcement of the ban, saying the administration had failed to state reasons for disqualifying qualified service members. But the Supreme Court issued an order in January allowing the ban to take effect, starting in April, while the case proceeds in appellate courts.
Becerra has also challenged the Trump administration’s attempts to reduce access to contraception and abortion. His office led a group of states that have twice won injunctions from a federal judge in Oakland, most recently this January, blocking rules that would allow employers to deny women nocost birth control coverage by citing religious or moral objections.