How California Courts Are Holding the Line on Civil Rights

In a time when the president is testing the bounds of the executive branch every day, the judiciary has become a central player in checking that power. State leadership has realized that the path to protecting civil rights is not just through new legislation but also through appealing to the laws already in place — by defending them in court.

California Courts and the Fight for Civil Rights

The California Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (which is seated in California) have a long history of being the first-in-the-nation to reach decisions on landmark legal issues that the U.S. Supreme Court would later vindicate, dating back to the 1948 decision in Perez vs. Sharp, which struck down bans on interracial marriage twenty years before the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit.

Courts often fall into two categories: those that align with the social norms of the day (such as when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an interracial marriage ban in the 1800s) or buck those social norms, as with Perez vs. Sharp. The courts in California definitely seem to be bucking not only the edicts handed down by the Trump administration but the anti-civil rights ethos behind them.

Recent news has focused on how the Ninth Circuit has already been busy during the second Trump administration, as the court has been instrumental in defending civil rights against the administration’s executive orders.

Where the Courts Stand

The Ninth Circuit ruled the government must continue to process and admit conditionally approved refugees and ordered the administration to reinstate federal workers fired by the Department of Government Efficiency. The same court also struck down the administration’s so-called “birthright” executive order and upheld a lower court order blocking a ban on transgender people from serving in the military.

The California judiciary has also continued to protect civil rights in the second Trump administration. A California appeals court recently found that employers could not force employees into arbitration (which favors the employer) for sexual harassment lawsuits, and the California Supreme Court is also intervening in attempts to deport immigrants by the administration.

In one case brought by the California Civil Rights Department, an appellate court ruled that a baker who refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple violated state nondiscrimination law — despite the Trump administration’s current moves to end DEI protections and programs.  The state supreme court likewise recently upheld $60,000 in damages to a transgender person who was repeatedly called female names and mocked for their gender identity by their Oakland landlord.

The New Front Line: Lawsuits and More Lawsuits

Leveraging judicial power to rein in the executive branch is not new in California, even for this president.

From 2017 to 2021, California sued the Trump administration a total of 123 times, with a majority of those suits related to environmental rules, immigration, and health care. The Office of the California Attorney General won more than two-thirds of those cases.

So, it is no surprise that as it becomes clearer that the federal legislative branch is not going to stop the Trump administration’s executive orders, the state would need to leverage the laws already in place to protect its citizens’ civil rights.

Lawsuits from the first Trump term cost California about $10 million a year, which is why the state passed a law allocating $50 million to continue protecting and defending our rights in court during the second term.

How the Attorney General is Acting

As of this date, less than three months into the Trump term, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed 10 lawsuits against the administration, many in conjunction with other states’ attorneys general.

One of the latest lawsuits challenges the executive order forcing states to require voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. The executive order also requires the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — a bipartisan, independent agency — to collect proof of citizenship in voter registration forms by the end of April.

Bonta’s Civil Rights Department has also prepared suits to protect employees in the Department of Education, oppose the birthright citizenship executive order, block cuts to National Institutes of Health grants, and prevent access to sensitive data by the Department of Government Efficiency.

Bonta’s ability to challenge unconstitutional and unlawful executive orders is a model for the nation. Other states with legislatures that support the administration are looking to stop their attorneys general from fighting these executive orders. North Carolina’s Senate, for example, just passed a law prohibiting Attorney General Jeff Jackson from challenging presidential executive orders, potentially setting a dangerous precedent for other states.

For California and the Ninth Circuit to continue to be at the forefront of equality and liberty, we must continue to vigilantly defend the right of the judiciary to be independent and a firm check on executive power, overreach, and corruption.

Jennifer Job is a digital strategist with Courage California. Courage California speaks truth to power, creates tools, and provides a progressive and unifying digital community to help Californians effectively and courageously engage in the democratic process. With Courage, we can build a more progressive, equitable, and representative democracy.