Here’s Why Confronting Trump Has Gotten Harder for the California Legislature

California Democrats passed a key first test of party unity in their confrontation with President Donald Trump’s administration this week. The state Assembly voted along party lines on Monday to set aside money for legal battles against the White House, sending the bills to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Approving the $50 million legal aid plan was not straightforward, however.

Antipathy toward Trump helped Democrats in California gain a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature in 2016 — and swell their ranks throughout his first term. However, a KQED analysis of district-level election results — using data from the Secretary of State’s office and nonpartisan research firm California Target Book — reveals that Trump’s recent gains in blue districts have complicated the Democratic playbook for resistance in his second term.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire face the challenge of uniting their caucuses while navigating an aggressive White House agenda and California’s shifting political map. Despite hurdles along the way, the funding plan cleared both houses of the Legislature with just a single Democratic vote in opposition.

The party cohesion is especially impressive when comparing the makeup of this supermajority to the one that took office in the aftermath of Trump’s first victory in 2016.

Back then, Democrats held 27 of 40 seats in the state Senate and 55 of 80 seats in the state Assembly. Strikingly, all 82 Democrats represented districts where Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory over Trump was at least 10 points.

The supermajority is even larger today: Democrats hold 60 seats in the Assembly and 30 in the Senate. Backlash to Trump, particularly in Orange County, led to Democrats unseating many swing-district Republicans during his first term.

But while the caucus has grown, the politics have become more complex. Now, 11 Democrats hold seats where the margin between Trump and Kamala Harris fell within single digits, including two members — Sen. Melissa Hurtado of Bakersfield and Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria of Merced — who represent districts that Trump won. Another Assemblymember, Jasmeet Bains, represents a Bakersfield district that went for Harris by just 363 votes.

Andrew Acosta, a Democratic political consultant, said legislators representing Trump-trending districts “have to create that lane of independence for themselves” as they navigate confrontations between California and Trump.

“They’re not running against Newsom per se, but they’re running against some of the caucus policies,” Acosta said. “I’m assuming they’re still going to be against the Trump overall agenda, but like Soria and probably Jasmeet Bains … they’re going to pick and choose their battles on some of this.”

Those calculations spilled into the open after Newsom called a special session days after the election to approve Trump-related legal aid. The plan sets aside up to $25 million for the state’s attorney general to battle the Trump administration in court and another $25 million for legal nonprofits to defend residents facing detention or deportation from federal actions.

Newsom initially pressed lawmakers to approve the funding before Trump took office, but the Legislature was consumed with responding to the deadly Los Angeles fires.

That delay proved to be an asset for Democrats. By the time the bills came up for a vote, moderates were armed with examples of Trump pushing the limits of constitutional law with moves to halt federal funding and end recognition of birthright citizenship.

“When this bill was first put forward, I had real questions about whether we were responding to a serious threat or simply trying to score some cheap political points,” Bains said on the Assembly floor before the vote. “But this new administration has erased any doubts that I may have had.”

There were still speed bumps for both bills on the way to Newsom’s desk.

In the Senate, Hurtado supported the nonprofit legal aid but was the lone Democrat to vote against the money for state lawyers. Her 16th District seat swung toward Trump by a 53%–44% margin after residents there had voted for Joe Biden by eight points in 2020.

“I feel personally that Trump-proofing is a missed opportunity to urge the president for meaningful change,” Hurtado said on the Senate floor. “We should be working with the president to ensure public safety deportations are targeted.”

Sensing a vulnerability on the issue of immigration, Republicans in the Assembly pushed for a vote last week on an amendment to clarify that the legal aid money could not be used to defend a person convicted of a felony.

Democrats responded by delaying the vote until Monday. When the proposal was finally brought up, Bains joined Republicans in supporting the amendment, while swing district Democrats Pilar Schiavo and Darshana Patel abstained from voting.

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders must still contend with the caucus’ imposing left flank. Seven in 10 Democrats in the Assembly represent districts that resoundingly rejected Trump in November, voting for Harris by a margin of at least 20 points. Rivas seemed to channel the desires of those members to take a more pugilistic stance when he took the rare step of addressing the entire Assembly from the rostrum before Monday’s vote.

“Let me be blunt — right now, Californians are being threatened by an out-of-control administration in Washington that doesn’t care about the Constitution, that thinks there are no limits to its power,” Rivas said.

What appeared to unite the caucus behind the special session bills was Trump’s flurry of executive actions in his first two weeks in office. Bains spoke of Trump’s threats to withhold wildfire disaster aid. Schiavo focused her remarks on the directive to freeze federal funding, which was rescinded.

Bill Wong, who led the campaign operation for the Assembly Democrats from 2017–22, argued the caucus would be wise to position any resistance around tangible programs coming under fire from Washington.

“If all of a sudden Meals on Wheels disappears, we go to war because people depend on that,” Wong said. “And we don’t need to add all of this other extraneous, performative lingo on how we do it. That’s all unnecessary, and that’s also off-putting to voters.”