‘Bridges, not walls:’ Brown invites Trump to visit rail site

SACRAMENTO >> In more backand-forth between White House Republicans and California policy makers, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday formally invited the president to visit high speed rail construction in the Central Valley, saying the state is more interested in building “bridges, not walls.”

The invitation comes as President Trump prepares to make his first visit to California on Tuesday, when he is expected to view prototypes of the proposed border wall in San Diego. And, it comes amid escalating vitriol aimed at California from the Trump administration, which last week filed a lawsuit in federal district court claiming the state’s sanctuary protections preempted federal immigration law.

“After you’ve examined your wall prototypes on the border, I invite you to head north to the Central Valley — the heart of California,” Brown said in the letter. “You see, in California we are focusing on bridges, not walls. And that’s more than just a figure of speech.”

A spokesperson for the White House did not answer questions about whether the president would accept the invitation.

To several political pundits, the letter was nothing more than a piece of political theater and a continuation of the “pissing match” between California policy makers and Republicans, which began long before Trump took office.

“It’s all Kabuki, and it’s bad Kabuki at that,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, adding that if Brown really wanted to

sit down with Trump, he could have met him on the tarmac in San Diego.

But, it’s a strategy that isn’t likely to end soon, said Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College.

“For California, Donald Trump is a bottomless cup of vile,” Pitney said. “And as long as Trump is president, he’s going to be going after California.”

That could have disastrous consequences for California’s high- speed rail project, which is already four years behind schedule as costs for the massive infrastructure project continue to balloon. On Friday, California High Speed Rail CEO Brian Kelly told reporters the project needs federal funding to make it down to Southern California, as promised to voters in 2008.

Golden State residents might as well wait for a Democratic president to take office, Pitney said.

But, there are also consequences for Republicans. With Democrats rallying to fight what they see as a rollback of progressive policies, re- energizing their base will undoubtedly hurt Republicans in the mid- term elections in November, Whalen said. But it could backfire for Democrats during the next presidential election in the same way former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s support of same- sex marriages hurt Democrats in the 2004 presidential election, he said.

In the long-run, advocates of same- sex marriage won, Whalen said, but not before opponents elected George W. Bush to the White House, twice.

“This may be a problem for Democrats in states other than California in 2020, where Trump will portray what California is doing as in effect protecting criminals,” Whalen said. “And then, maybe by 2024 or 2028, the country might find themselves more comfortable with sanctuary policies.”

But in the short- term, at least, Democrats seem to be doubling down on their attacks against the president. State Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, called Trump’s first visit to California, only to see prototype border walls, “shameless” and called on state Democrats to “ramp up the pressure.”

“California leads the country in job creation, innovation, environmental protection and gun control,” Lara said. “Have ( Trump) fix his own house before throwing stones.”