Michael Newman, head of civil rights enforcement at California Atty. General Rob Bonta’s office is exhausted.

Newman and his legal team have just worked all weekend, passing directly that Monday and postponed for sleep until Tuesday as legal challenges widen for the Trump administration.

But upon his return home, he was warned that the administration had “cut half of the Department of Education’s workforce,” Newman said. “And that’s like, ‘OK, well…it’s not happening.’ ”

The team returned to work with others in Bonta’s office and filed a new lawsuit by Thursday, along with other Democrat-led states to stop the shooting.

“It’s like the idea of ​​what life is like for a litigant,” Newman said. “When you think it’s safe to log off from your laptop, you’re receiving it [says]”Did you see this latest order just came out?”

For months, the pace of President Trump’s declarations, executive orders and dramatic policy changes has been very fast, their reach has been very cleaned, and many Trump critics feel overwhelmed and wary. They also lamented the democratic response, especially in Congress, as incompetent, unplanned and ineffective.

But since Trump took office in January, lawyers in Bonta’s office, as well as in the Democratic general’s offices across the country, have been in a full sprint to catch up and push back. They have planned even longer and more carefully, including considering lawsuits from Trump’s first term. Hearing Trump’s promises on the campaign trail. Evaluation of conservative state lawsuits against the Biden administration. And then culling Project 2025, a controversial game plan for the second term of the president.

The result is a rapid launch of lawsuits challenging Trump’s policies, including an order aimed at ending birthright citizenship for immigrant American-born children, and his orders to cut off federal funds already allocated by Congress for programs across California and across the country, as well as the veterans program, national parks and other Jen’s shootings

They also appealed for funding the National Institute of Health for universities and other research institutes, the end of K-12 teacher training and preparation grants, billionaire Elon Musk’s informal but prominent role in the federal government, and blocking access to sensitive data in government efficiency.

In addition to their own lawsuits, Bonta and other Democrat lawyers have supported the challenges against the Trump administration’s attack on members of transgender services, refugees, immigration, national labor relations committee officials, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Law office It angered Trump with their legal work.

Trump administration officials defend all policies as fulfilling the president’s promises to voters. They dismissed California’s legal objections as misguided attempts to interfere with Trump’s presidential authorities, and condemned the court’s decision to suspend or restrict policies as the job of liberal “activist” judges.

California has sued the first Trump administration about 120 times in four years, often succeeding. In the first eight weeks of the current administration, Bonta’s office joined other states and filed eight legal measures. And it’s not counting applications to support other lawsuits.

In February, Gavin Newsom Gov. Gavin Newsom approved an additional $25 million to support immigrants’ legal services, along with a law that would allow an additional $25 million to fund a state court battle with the Trump administration.

Bonta said his office works to support the Constitution and other federal laws, not to assert a liberal agenda.

“If they decide to stop destroying the law, they will stop filing lawsuits,” he said. “It’s that easy.”

“We’re ready, we’re doing this.”

After Trump won the election, Newman, a 46-year-old Los Angeles native and Pepperdine Law alumnus, brought together teams such as civil rights lawyers, paralegals and others for PEP talk. There was sadness and fear in the room, but I was confident too. “We’re ready, we’re doing this, we’re working on it,” he said.

“I think it’s very empowering that we can be at this world, in this country, at this point, to be the tip of a spear in a fight to prevent the worst-case scenario,” he said.

The team has now refreshed the debate from the last Trump administration and worked focusing on new policies Trump is expected to unfold, Newman said.

Still, there were many that I didn’t know about.

All new policies require a different legal analysis of the administration’s legal justification, as well as its content and details, Newman said. “It’s not what they do, it’s the way they do it,” he said. “And many of those things need tweaks at the end.”

The state also needs to be able to clearly articulate how federal policies that intend to challenge California, a process that Newman said is particularly personally involved.

By the inauguration day, which fell on Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, the lawyers in Bonta’s office were ready to set up. They all saw Trump’s speech that day and “organize in real time what their priorities are,” Newman said.

Bonta on the left is explained by Newman.

(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)

Bonta said Trump’s “executive order blitz” was clearly intended to create “shock and awe” to “storm and confusion” in order to “storm and confusion.”

But his team was ready, he said.

Their first target was Trump’s order, which aimed to end birthright citizenship. That’s something Trump telegraphed that he would do, and it’s illegal for them and other blue states to be confident and could be overturned by court. They sued the next day and called the order unconstitutional. The judges immediately agreed and blocked the order from becoming effective.

Another early goal – the office of management and budget memos aimed at stopping trillions of dollars in federal funding was not what they expected, Bonta said, so they worked on it on the spot.

Bonta learned of the memo, and was caught off guard, he said, published a week after Trump took office and published on his way home from an incident with a San Francisco law student. “It wasn’t necessarily on our bingo card, but we’re trying to suspend $3 trillion in vital and essential federal funds overnight,” he said.

He said texts and emails came flying between his leadership team and other Democrats’ attorney generals, and they immediately said, “We had to submit something right away the next day,” Bonta said, and “it means that some people won’t fall asleep.”

The night stands out vividly for Christina Bull Aldo, who helped coordinate interstate responses as the lead advisor to a special case in Bonta’s office.

The evening began with an email asking if they were intensively hiring lawyers across the country.

East Coast lawyers worked diligently in California from 2am to 11pm before handing over the job to their West Coast counterparts. The West Coast counterparts woke up by an East Coast lawyer and took over the day in federal court in Rhode Island and filed the day.

Arndt, a 57-year-old UCLA Law Grad who grew up in San Diego, sat in his office at home that night, “Looking at that screen with all the people around the country and saying, ‘OK, who’s doing what?” ”

It was inspiring, she said.

“This sounds sapphire, but I don’t care. I work with a lot of people who really want to do the best for Californians who want to do what they’re doing and what they’re doing, and what they want to do right by the people in this country,” she said. “I am always grateful to be able to work with these people.

A federal judge subsequently blocked the funding freeze, but Bonta’s office still calls on the court to better enforce the order.

Legal war

Congress firmly in Republican control, and resistance to many of Trump’s novel and legally questionable actions has fallen almost entirely on those willing to challenge the administration in court.

Not only did Trump and his allies criticize legal rulings on their policies, they also called for individual judges to be fired each to issue such decisions. These calls, a surprising humiliation from the presidential administration over the rule of law, have caused a rare responsibilities from Secretary John G. Roberts Jr., but that has not stopped them.

Trump also chased law firms that helped his clients challenge him or his agenda in the past, targeting them for punishment unless they were in line with his demands. And he recently surprised the legal world by issuing a presidential memorandum of understanding threatening all law firms with sanctions, revoking security clearances and other penalties if his administration finds it inappropriately sued the federal government.

The administration also sought to curb the power of the state to sue the federal government, including discussions with the Supreme Court in a birthright citizenship case. Legal experts say such state lawsuits have expanded exponentially under the recent administration of both parties, and there are legitimate legal inconsistencies about their effectiveness, especially when state powers are not at stake.

The California Attorney General is the state’s top law enforcement officer, accused of defending the civil rights and legal and consumer interests of California residents, and serving as an attorney for state officials and agencies, among other things.

Legal experts say the state attorney general has been given the power to sue the federal government, particularly to challenge federal laws and regulations. Experts said their legal authority to challenge federal government policies for other reasons, such as when they undermine or infringe on the rights of national residents, is even more confused.

Bonta of the center, Bonta’s left, Bonta’s right hand, Newman, is being explained by members of his civil rights enforcement department.

(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)

Tara Lee Grove, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said he wrote about state status in such cases, but said the state attorney general has been building litigation capacity for the past 40 years, but has been increasingly suing ever since the 2007 Supreme Court decision was interpreted as strengthening the position of doing so within the legal community.

Bonta said he was not surprised that the Trump administration is now challenging its power to appeal to the power of the nation, given the accumulation of victory over the administration.

“We’re active, we’re organized, we’re making a difference. We’re stopping their illegality. We’re standing up for the rule of law and the constitution, and they don’t like it, so they want to reduce our power and influence.”

Newman said the lawyers for his civil rights team are certainly standing up for the fight. They are “clearly” about the Trump administration’s retaliation efforts – “I know they’re obsessed with their enemies and those who get in their way,” he said, but he’s not dazzling.

The job is “tiring and frustrating,” he said, but it’s incredibly rewarding.

“There’s no more emotion in the world,” he said. “Above to stop the abuse of power based on the legal principles and strategies you have developed.”