Washington and Massachusetts are stockpiling abortion pills. California is cutting climate deals directly with automakers. Colorado is rushing to protect the right to same-sex marriage. And attorneys general across the country are marshaling legal resources and privately plotting courtroom strategies.<\/p>\n
From the West Coast to the East, blue states are preparing for the possibility that former president Donald Trump wins reelection in November by attempting to shield their policy priorities from the reach of a future Trump administration.<\/p>\n
This preemptive strategy \u2014 \u201cTrump-proofing\u201d \u2014 encompasses a wide range of issues and programs that Democratic leaders fear could be targeted in another Trump presidency, based on his previous actions and his current campaign promises.<\/p>\n
Even as they pursue such safeguards, Democrats are projecting confidence in their nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, but they say it would be irresponsible to go into Election Day without a backup plan for their worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n
The approach so far remains more concurrent than coordinated, with different states pursuing their own measures, but the country\u2019s most liberal leaders forged close ties during Trump\u2019s first term as they allied in opposition to him. Now they appear poised to unify again.<\/p>\n
The effort provides a striking contrast to the 2016 election, when Trump\u2019s victory took Democratic officials by surprise and sent them scrambling to respond. Much has changed in the eight years since, however, and experts say that even with the early Democratic organizing, the reach could be limited by the conservative transformation of the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court in Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n
Still, leaders in blue state America believe the head start and hard-won experience will help them once again act as a bulwark against an agenda they deem dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Donald Trump should somehow be reelected, we\u2019ll be ready from day one to respond,\u201d said Robert Rivas, the speaker of the California Assembly and one of the top elected Democrats in a state that has styled itself as Trump\u2019s fiercest sparring partner. \u201cWe\u2019ve already stopped Trump once and we\u2019re prepared to do so again.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Biden administration and on the international stage, this work has been underway for months, as the president looks to lock in his legacy and alliances like NATO seek stability. But the preparations are especially pitched at the state level, where there\u2019s a long tradition of conflict with the federal government, turbocharged by the moment\u2019s hyper-partisanship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been the eternal battle,\u201d said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego. \u201cAnd in our modern polarization, after every presidential contest, half the nation wants to move in the opposite direction of the president.\u201d<\/p>\n
States appear to be pursuing a three-pronged self-defense strategy, according to interviews with officials, advocates and experts, situated in governors\u2019 mansions, state houses and courtrooms.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign said a Trump presidency would \u201churt every single American, no matter where they live,\u201d and that the only way to stop him \u201cis to elect Vice President Harris.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign accused Democrats of \u201cfearmongering because they know the Trump-Vance ticket is winning on the issues that matter to voters,\u201d and added that \u201cAmericans will \u2018Kamala-proof\u2019 our country\u201d by reelecting Trump.<\/p>\n
In shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes at an undisclosed government facility sits Washington state\u2019s insurance policy against a future Trump administration. In them are 30,000 doses of mifepristone, the commonly used abortion pill that has become a flash point in the fight over reproductive rights.<\/p>\n
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) was one of several state leaders to order stockpiles of the medication last year, when a lawsuit threatened to limit access to the drug. The Supreme Court later rejected the challenge, but Inslee said last week that he would maintain the state\u2019s stash \u2014 at least until the presidential race is decided.<\/p>\n
Trump has suggested that he is open to using federal regulations to limit access to mifepristone, declining to rule out the move in a summer news conference. His campaign later said that \u201cthe Supreme Court unanimously decided on the issue and the matter is settled,\u201d but the court\u2019s ruling has no bearing on what his future administration could do and it left the drug vulnerable to additional legal challenges.<\/p>\n
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) is likewise preserving her state\u2019s stockpile of 15,000 pills in case Trump returns to office.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Donald Trump presidency would be disastrous for states,\u201d Healey said in a statement to The Washington Post, adding that \u201che would destroy reproductive freedom even more than he already has.\u201d<\/p>\n
The moves from Inslee and Healey are just the most recent examples of governors wielding their executive authority in attempts to counter what they expect to be Trump\u2019s agenda. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), probably MAGA\u2019s most visible state-level foil, has been working to secure a lofty climate agenda.<\/p>\n
Trump has long gleefully targeted California, and his campaign has told reporters that as president he would again revoke the state\u2019s power to set its own pollution limits on cars and trucks, among other things. (In a September news conference in the state, he also threatened to block federal fire aid to California unless Newsom bowed to his agenda on taxes and other topics.)<\/p>\n
To counter any Trump action on the pollution front, Newsom announced an agreement earlier this year with the automaker Stellantis, one of the world\u2019s largest car manufacturers. The pact ensures that Stellantis will comply with California regulations even if the state is \u201cunable to enforce its standards as a result of judicial or federal action,\u201d an arrangement similar to one Newsom brokered during Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n
The deals underscore California\u2019s ability, rare among states, to use its formidable economy and market muscle to shape policy regardless of what happens at the federal level.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Newsom has increasingly acted as an international negotiator, pursuing agreements with China, Australia and others on climate change, a trend that is likely to accelerate if Trump retakes office and once again pulls the United States out of the Paris climate treaty, as he has pledged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely trying to future-proof California in every way, shape or form,\u201d Newsom said at a February news conference when asked about what a Trump presidency would mean for his state. \u201cWe know the playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Trump\u2019s 2016 election, California\u2019s rattled legislative leaders vowed to \u201clead the resistance\u201d to his administration.<\/p>\n
That defiant pledge kicked off years of policymaking as the legislature\u2019s Democratic supermajority pushed dozens of bills designed to insulate California, such as the 2017 \u201csanctuary state\u201d law that limited communication between local authorities and federal immigration officials amid Trump\u2019s threats of mass deportations.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere in California, we are already battle-tested,\u201d Rivas said.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Newsom signed a bill that requires insurance companies to cover in vitro fertilization, citing GOP opposition to the treatment in explaining its urgency.<\/p>\n
Trump has said his government would cover IVF, but he has offered few details to support the plan and advocates are skeptical, pointing to the way his views on reproductive issues have shifted over the years and to recent Republican votes against protecting the procedures.<\/p>\n
State lawmakers have also sought to protect same-sex marriage, pushing onto the November ballot constitutional amendments securing it in California, Colorado and Hawaii.<\/p>\n
While Trump has said he\u2019s \u201cfine\u201d with the Supreme Court\u2019s Obergefell ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019s suggestion that it should be reexamined has alarmed the LGBTQ+ community. Advocates fear that Trump, if reelected, would appoint more far-right judges who could then facilitate further attacks on gay rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to really address that issue now while we could,\u201d said Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, co-chair of the Democratic caucus and sponsor of the state\u2019s amendment to remove the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. \u201cA lot of basic protections people take for granted could be changed by a Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Titone said she plans to spend the next few weeks studying how a federal rollback of LGBTQ+ protections \u2014 like those the Trump campaign has already outlined \u2014 could harm Coloradans, and then prepare legislation that could fill the gaps.<\/p>\n
Titone, however, acknowledged that there are legal and practical limits to what state lawmakers can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the administration took a hatchet to a lot of the federal rules that offer protections to Coloradans,\u201d she said, \u201cthere could be some people who are really harmed because we just don\u2019t have the bandwidth to respond to all the issues that could potentially come up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s first term taught Democrats an important lesson: When lawmaking fails, try lawsuits.<\/p>\n
State attorneys general are preparing to revive that strategy as early as Inauguration Day if Trump returns to office. Departments are war-gaming possible legal defenses and pledging to pick up where they left off in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see what comes in November and beyond, but we won\u2019t be caught flat-footed,\u201d California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement to The Post. \u201cFortunately and unfortunately, we have four years of Trump 1.0 under our belt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bonta\u2019s office declined to discuss specific legal strategy, but a spokesperson said staffers are reviewing what Trump has described as his second-term agenda as they prepare for what they expect to be a wave of lawsuits in the environmental, immigration and civil rights spaces.<\/p>\n
They and other elected officials have also been studying plans put forth by Trump allies, particularly Project 2025, whose far-right policy prescriptions have drawn sustained campaign attacks from his opponents.<\/p>\n
The voluminous compendium was crafted by many veterans of Trump\u2019s first administration. He has of late disavowed the document, even as he earlier praised it and pushed similar policies on some fronts.<\/p>\n
Lawsuits against the federal government have been ticking up since former president Barack Obama\u2019s second term, said Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University and an attorneys general expert. But they skyrocketed during the Trump years, with Democratic states suing his administration more than 150 times, according to Nolette\u2019s database of cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically just exploded,\u201d Nolette said. \u201cNow it\u2019s like everyone\u2019s suing everyone over everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats were often successful, winning more than 80 percent of the cases against Trump, Nolette said, thus blocking some of the former president\u2019s high-profile moves, like his push to include citizenship status on the Census and his attempt to cancel the program protecting undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, known as DACA.<\/p>\n
But since many of those consequential cases were decided, the Supreme Court has shifted further to the right with Trump\u2019s picks, mirroring a similar trend at the district level. And while Democrats have been planning ahead, Trump\u2019s allies also have had years to fine-tune their own legal strategies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t a one-way ratchet,\u201d Nolette said. \u201cThey\u2019re both upping their game.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Washington and Massachusetts are stockpiling abortion pills. California is cutting climate deals directly with automakers. Colorado is rushing to protect the right to same-sex marriage. And attorneys general across the country are marshaling legal resources and privately plotting courtroom strategies. From the West Coast to the East, blue states are preparing for the possibility that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}