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- These lawsuits have ensured that about $168 billion that Trump would have cut off has continued to flow to California.
- The $5 million spent so far has been entirely in-house, Bonta said.
SACRAMENTO — Seven months into President Trump’s second term, California has filed 37 lawsuits against his administration and spent about $5 million doing it.
Before you go off on a government-spending rant, let me drop this figure on you: For each dollar the state has spent in litigation with Trump, it has recouped $33,600 in funds that the federal government has tried to take away from the Golden State, according to Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.
That, as he put it during a Monday news conference, is “bringing the receipts.”
These aren’t dollars Californians were wishing for or begging for from the federal government — these are funds that have already been legally allotted to the state but which the Trump administration is attempting to stop for reasons petty, ideological or both. They pay for teacher training, immunizations, tracking infectious diseases, keeping roads safe, disaster recovery and on and on. And they are predominantly your tax dollars, being withheld from your state.
“What we’re demanding is that we get the funding that’s already been legally approved and appropriated,” Bonta said.
But as much as it’s about paying for the basics that keep California going, it’s also about protecting an inclusive and equitable way of living that defines the ethos of our state. Don’t tread on us! Californians get to spend our money how we see fit.
“When you add it all up, you see the totality of what’s at stake: the California dream,” Bonta said. “The idea that every Californian, no matter how they look, where they live or how much money they have, can send their kid to school, go to the doctor when they’re sick and put food on the table and a roof over their heads.”
Or as Gov. Gavin Newsom put it, it’s litigation not for the sake of suing, but to “defend, to stand tall, to hold the line in terms of our values, the things we hold dear.”
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said his office spent more than $5 million fighting the Trump administration in recent months, but saved California nearly $170 billion.
It’s serious times, folks. Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t stand for LGBTQ+ rights, for immigrants’ rights, for women’s rights, for due process or even public schools. But so far, the courts have held, for the most part, to their responsibility to be a check on this unbalanced administration.
Of course, lawyers win cases, sometimes regardless of facts. I want to give a shout out to our state Department of Justice. Bonta may be the state’s top lawyer, but there is a whole army of legal folks behind these lawsuits.
The $5 million spent so far has been entirely in-house, Bonta said. This cash isn’t going to expensive outside counsel, but, as my colleague Kevin Rector points out, money that is funding the smart, talented attorneys and staff who work for taxpayers.
More than a few of them were around during Trump’s first term, when the state was involved in more than 120 lawsuits against his administration. Many of those suits were about process — the haphazard, rules-be-damned way Trump seeks to implement his policies.
Our California lawyers learned then that courts do in fact uphold law, and simply pointing out that rules have to be followed was often enough to stop Trump. While we now have a seasoned legal team that understands the weaknesses in what Trump is doing, the sort-of-funny part is that he’s still doing it. Few lessons learned, which is good for California.
So far, these lawsuits by California have ensured that about $168 billion that Trump would have cut off instead continued to flow to California. Bonta said that in the 19 cases that have made it in front of a judge so far, he’s succeeded in 17, including winning 13 court orders directly blocking Trump’s “illegal actions.”
He’s also secured wins outside of court, including when the U.S. Department of Education recently backed down after freezing school funding weeks before school is set to start. That funding, under threat of a lawsuit, has been restored.
Bonta said that while the state is fighting every lawsuit with rigor, two are personal to him and “remain sort of the most important in terms of what they represent.”
They happen to be the first two suits the state filed, shortly after Trump took office. The first was about birthright citizenship, and Trump’s bid to end it. It’s a case Bonta says is “very meaningful” to him.
Bonta was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States when he was 2 months old, living in a trailer in the Central Valley town of La Paz, the home of the United Farm Workers. His parents left their country to avoid martial law as the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos gained power, and worked with civil rights leaders including Cesar Chavez once they settled here.
So it makes sense that an executive order that would leave about 24,500 babies born each year in California without U.S. citizenship hits hard with Bonta.
Bonta, along with attorneys general of several other states, filed that lawsuit the day after Trump took office, in response to an executive order he signed on Inauguration Day. So far, multiple courts have expressed deep skepticism of that order, and the idea that the Constitution and prior Supreme Court rulings should be ignored in favor of Trump’s position.
The second case that Bonta takes personally is a multistate pushback on Trump’s sweeping halt of federal funding. That case put at risk about $3 trillion nationwide, including that $168 billion in California, about a third of the state budget.
The Trump administration has repeatedly centered its policy battles in California, including on immigration and transgender rights, gun permitting rules, environmental regulations and agricultural policies.
Coming up next is a challenge to the deployment of Marines and National Guard troops in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has been quietly removing those soldiers in recent days, perhaps in preparation for asking the court to drop that case, which seems like a loser for them. No troops, no case. We’ll see how it goes in a few days.
“The Marines and the National Guardspeople arrived to quiet streets in L.A.,” Bonta said. “The president has been incredibly, in my view, disrespectful to these patriots. He’s treated them as political pawns.”
The $5 million the state has spent so far on legal fights with Trump is part of $25 million the Legislature set aside earlier this year during a special session. Bonta said that even that will likely not be enough to keep the challenges flowing for the next three and a half years.
Newsom, for his part, is all in and promised that Bonta “will not be in need of resources to do his job.” (And yes, I know it raises his profile for a 2028 presidential run.)
As much as it seems ridiculous that we are setting aside this huge chunk of change for legal fees at a moment when we are facing a budget crisis, the cost of letting Trump run roughshod over our state is much higher. This is money well spent.
Because it’s not just our federal funding at stake, it’s the California dream.
Insights
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Viewpoint
Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The author argues that California’s $5 million investment in 37 lawsuits against the Trump administration represents exceptional fiscal responsibility, generating $33,600 in recovered federal funding for every dollar spent in legal fees[2]. This return on investment demonstrates that the litigation strategy effectively protects taxpayer dollars that were already legally allocated to the state but being withheld for what the author characterizes as “petty, ideological” reasons.
The litigation serves a broader purpose beyond financial recovery, functioning as a defense of California’s fundamental values and the “California dream” - the principle that every Californian should have access to education, healthcare, and basic necessities regardless of their background[2]. The author emphasizes that these lawsuits protect an “inclusive and equitable way of living that defines the ethos of our state.”
The author presents Attorney General Bonta’s personal connection to key cases, particularly birthright citizenship, as evidence of the moral imperative behind the legal strategy[2]. Bonta’s immigrant background and family history fleeing martial law in the Philippines adds personal stakes to policies that would deny citizenship to approximately 24,500 babies born annually in California.
The state’s legal team is portrayed as experienced and strategically positioned, having learned from Trump’s first term that courts will uphold legal processes and that simply pointing out rule violations can successfully block improper federal actions[2]. The author notes that despite this previous experience, Trump continues making similar procedural errors that benefit California’s legal challenges.
Different views on the topic
While California celebrates initial victories in most of its 37 lawsuits, the ultimate outcomes remain uncertain because the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees, will have the final word in most cases[1]. The Court has already demonstrated deference to Trump’s agenda in several recent decisions.
The Supreme Court has already reversed multiple lower court victories that initially favored states challenging Trump policies, including reinstating Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s layoffs of more than half the Department of Education’s employees and allowing sweeping federal agency staff reductions to proceed while legal challenges continue[1]. These reversals suggest that California’s current winning streak may prove temporary.
The Court has similarly overturned lower court orders protecting transgender military personnel, allowing Trump to dismiss transgender troops and ban new recruits while legal challenges proceed[1]. This pattern indicates that the conservative majority is willing to permit Trump administration policies to take effect even during ongoing litigation.
Broader litigation tracking shows mixed results across all Trump administration challenges, with federal judges ruling both for and against the government in various cases, suggesting the legal landscape is more complex than California’s initial success rate might indicate[3].
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