Progressive governors and attorneys general are already moving to defy Donald Trump two months before the president-elect retakes the Oval Office. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom called on lawmakers Thursday to convene a special session aimed at “Trump-proofing” state laws. New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a statewide initiative to combat “policy and regulatory threats” from the Trump administration. And in Illinois and Massachusetts, lawmakers said they’d fight the federal government to protect vulnerable and undocumented residents—including resisting future deportation requests.
“Every tool in the toolbox has got to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states, and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle,” Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said.
The emerging battle lines hearken back to the first Trump administration—and invert the usual politics around “state’s rights.” Now, these same types of state laws may make places like California and New York bulwarks against Trump’s radical second-term agenda. The president-elect has promised to initiate mass deportations, roll back gun safety laws and dismantle environmental protections. Critics fear his administration would also move to further restrict abortion access.
Blue states can theoretically fight those policies through state legislation, lawsuits, ballot initiatives and executive action by the governor’s office. According to Indivisible, a progressive organizing group formed in response to Trump’s first election, Democrats currently control the governorship and legislature in 14 states—making them the most likely hot spots for anti-Trump action. Three moved to shore up progressive policies even ahead of Trump’s win, voting Tuesday to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitutions. Blue-state governors are also promising to muster legal and financial resources in defense of potential threats from the incoming administration.
They will face more obstacles to defying Trump now than they did five years ago. For one thing, Trump performed far better than expected in progressive states, including New York and California. The president-elect also loaded the courts with conservative judges during his first administration, which may hamper future legal challenges from the left. Healy appeared to acknowledge as much in a recent appearance on MSNBC: “In 2016, we had a very different situation in the courts,” she said.
Still, blue-state leaders have struck a pugnacious pose. On Thursday, Newsom wrote on X that California’s special legislative session would develop strategies to “fight” any rollback of the state’s progressive civil rights, climate and reproductive healthcare policies under Trump. A day earlier, New York Attorney General Letitia James—whose office took nearly 100 legal actions against Trump during and after his first term—vowed that New York would “not shrink” from battles with the incoming administration. “We did not expect this result, but we are prepared to respond to this result,” she said. “We faced this challenge before, and we used the rule of law to fight back.”