Amid Historic Wildfires, CA Dems Prioritize $50M Deal to Resist Trump

The agreement would fund litigation against the incoming White House and protect against a potential mass deportation of immigrants

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Photo by ZOE MEYERS/AFP via Getty Images

Although devastating wildfires destroyed much of Los Angeles, California Democrats have remained committed and steadfast in their efforts to fight the incoming Trump administration and his plans to deal with illegal immigration. Politico reports, the California Democrats reached a $50 million agreement to support state and local legal defenses against the incoming administration, doing so just one week ahead of Trump’s inauguration.

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The deal includes the $25 million dollars initially proposed by California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) for the State Department of Justice to fight the Trump administration in court and an additional $25 million proposed by state Senate leaders to “defend immigrants against deportation, detention, and wage theft.”

Senate Budget Chair Scott Wiener boasted that the agreement “cements California’s readiness to serve as a bulwark against Trump’s extremist agenda,” according to Politico.

The “special session package” could be voted on as soon as this week.

Despite the horrific tragedy unfolding in Los Angeles as wildfires have raged since last Tuesday and have reportedly taken at least 24 lives, the Democrats have found that the matter of California resisting President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is apparently just as urgent, if arguably not more.

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Wiener claimed that Senate Democrats quickly worked to reach an agreement on the matter of standing up against the Trump administration because they feel doing so responds to the needs of their communities. With this agreement, millions in funding will be allotted to “providers of legal aid services,” Wiener said, “which know our communities’ needs best and are best positioned to defend at scale the millions of millions of individuals and families that will be impacted by the incoming Administration’s extreme agenda.”

Meanwhile, Republicans have been pushing for a special session to focus solely on the terrifying wildfires.

Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher reacted to the Democrats’ special session agreement stating, “At a time when California should be laser focused on responding to the devastating wildfires in LA, Democrat lawmakers’ priority is creating a $50 million slush fund to hire government lawyers for hypothetical fights against the federal government and to defend criminal illegal immigrants from being returned to their home countries,” Politico reports.

Governor Newsom appeared on the “Pod Save America” podcast over the weekend, just days after the wildfires began, saying that he is “happy to do whatever moves the needle forward” and said he and other leaders were going to discuss whether a special session to deal with the fires was “necessary.”

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