California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed two bills Friday providing $50 million to fight President Donald Trump’s policies — after returning from a trip to Washington, DC, where he sought federal aid money for recent wildfires in his state.
Both bills were passed after a special legislative session called by Newsom after the election to prepare California to lead the opposition to the second Trump administration. Newsom and the Democrat-controlled legislature reached a deal to fund the anti-Trump effort even as the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire were still smoldering in Los Angeles.
One bill, SBX1-1, provides for “additional funding to be made available to the Department of Justice for litigation challenges of federal policy. The other, SBX1-2, provides funding for “legal services to vulnerable persons at risk of detention, deportation, [or] eviction” — in other words, to illegal aliens. Both were introduced by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).
The bills were passed earlier this week. Newsom waited until his visit in Washington was over, and until a Friday afternoon — when many people have left work and are less likely to notice the news — to sign the spending into law.
In a signing statement attached to SBX1-2, Newsom says that none of the funding is to be used for illegal immigrants “convicted of serious of violent felonies.” However, nothing in the text of the bill says that.
Newsom is seeking billions of dollars in federal aid to clean up and rebuild devastated communities. Breitbart News made the point during President Trump’s visit to Pacific Palisades that the administration should appoint a “Special Master,” along the lines of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, to ensure that California spends any aid properly, given that the state believed it had money available to spend on fighting Trump.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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