Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – California Governor Gavin Newsom assumed the mantle of national leadership when he announced California’s “Election Rigging Response Act.” This is in direct response to convicted felon Donald Trump, who called up Texas Governor Greg Abbott and told him to “get him five more seats in the House.” Trump recognizes his party will lose its congressional super-majority in the 2026 midterm elections in the absence of such desperate measures.
It was “Liberation Day” in California, and potentially the beginning of a new political tidal wave in the United States. Newsom argued that Trump “has rigged the system, demanding five new seats in [Texas] because he knows they can’t win the mid-terms without it.” This keeps with the precedent of the 2020 election when he ordered Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to “find” 11,800 more votes in GA. We have the US Supreme Court to thank for the gerrymandering craze among Republicans, now being met head on by California, New York, Illinois and other Blue states. The 2019 case of Rucho v. Common Cause determined that, “partisan gerrymandering present “a nonjusticiable ‘political question’” and thus cannot be heard in federal court.
One in eight Americans live in California, and it comprises 14 percent of the US economy, with a nearly $4 trillion gross domestic product. If it were a country, it would place only behind the US, China and Germany, outranking Japan. It is a formidable enemy.
Trump’s sycophants in the House are running scared. They fear being primaried by an even loonier far-right, Trump-backed candidate if they cross him on a single issue. But they also are terrified of their own constituents, whom they’re afraid to face in person at Town Hall meetings. A large percentage of the 77 million people who voted for Trump in 2024 feel betrayed by the president and by their Congressional representatives, who enacted a budget bill they now view as hideous rather than “beautiful.” They recognize how he is destroying the nation’s medical care lifeline (Medicaid) and hurting the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration. Trump has been harming the agricultural and service economies with his Nazi-like ICE campaign using racial profiling to detain 3,000 people a day, some of them citizens.
Unlike the Texas model of “drawing a new map in a backroom deal, and ramming it through the state legislature;” California’s response brings a “transparent, temporary and public process” to put the maps on the Nov. 4 ballot, “and let the people decide.” The only other option, Newsom said, was to “unilaterally disarm, and lose Democracy district by district all across the country.” Newsom called out the felonious president for, “Trying to rewrite history, and censor historical facts,” such as changing content of exhibits in the Smithsonian. Trump has declared a war on the American people by putting the country “in reverse on voting rights and civil rights.”
Newsom isn’t formally running for President in 2028, but is widely viewed as likely to enter the race. He is so far the most prominent state-level official to aggressively challenge Trump’s brazen extortion scheme against universities, law firms and corporations. UCLA and the University of California system are being targeted with a one billion-dollar fine, and face grant suspensions by the Departments of Justice and Education. The pretext is their alleged failures to curb anti-Semitism and (let’s call it) academic excellence. Whereas Columbia rolled over (bribed) Trump with the hope that he’d leave it alone, Newsom is challenging this grand extortion on behalf of the flagship UC education system, with the state’s own legal counterclaim.
The $1 billion fine is a gross form of extra-legal extortion. Department of Education (DOE) head and former World Wrestling Entertainment Chairwoman Linda McMahon suspended $584 million in grants that have crippled research in medicine, science and industry research at UCLA. The grants withdrawn represent over half of what UCLA gets in federal contracts and grants annually. These retributions are punishment for supposedly failing to curb anti-Semitism on campus. Of course, Trump is using that pretext as a smokescreen for crippling science research, academic freedom and administrative autonomy of American universities. What the Trump administration means by “anti-Semitism” on campus is allowing constitutionally protected protests against the Gaza genocide.
UC President James Milliken has agreed to negotiate with the DOE to restore the suspended grants. Milliken rebutted the anti-Semitism pretext saying, “These cuts do nothing to address antisemitism. Moreover, the extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored. The announced cuts would be a death knell for innovative work that saves lives, grows our economy, and fortifies our national security. It is in our country’s best interest that funding be restored.”
The Justice Department and US AG Pam Bondi announced the grant suspensions on July 28, threatening that UCLA would pay a “heavy price” for its “deliberate indifference to the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students.” UCLA was issued a harsh ultimatum by the DOJ signed by US Asst. AG Harmeet K. Dhillon — former RNC and California GOP Party Chair — with an August 5th deadline to agree to a voluntary settlement. Californians hope that President Milliken’s assurances of “full restoration” are realistic.
Though Berkeley has been sanctioned on a lesser scale, UCLA has been Trump’s main target. It’s all part of his grand campaign to punish, extort and harass America’s most prestigious public and private universities, and bend them to his will. The issue is weaponization of anti-Semitism, as a cover for suppressing academic freedom; and creating pretext to deport students protesting the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Numerous major Jewish organizations have expressed their objections to Trump using anti-Semitism as a ruse for suppression. The Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA) issued an eloquent statement stating their objections to, “the false choice between confronting antisemitism and upholding democracy.” Antisemitism has been Trump’s guise and cover for suppressing academic freedoms, and deporting politically active students, faculty and organizers. Thankfully, this consortium of thoughtful Jewish organizations has countered that travesty with a united effort and lucid arguments. That 10 major Jewish organizations came to agreement on anything is a semantic and polemical miracle.
Photo of UCLA by clement proust on Unsplash
It’s been disappointing to see so many law firms and global media corporations ceding to Trump’s demands. Such cowardice further empowers him, so that it’s part of his “business model” now. Newsom summed up Trump’s motivation, which is to “silence academic freedom by attacking one of the most important public institutions in the United States of America.” The California governor’s affirmative actions to challenge this and countersue, should be the model for universities, corporations and media conglomerates going forward. Be Like Gavin – not like Columbia, Harvard CBS-Paramount, and the US law firms that have agreed to pay $948 million in pro bono services to placate Trump.
Lost in this discussion is that Trump has once again overturned and usurped Federal law; most notably Title VI and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Trump’s actions have criminalized the goals of that landmark act that prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, national origin or shared ancestry. This includes Jewish and Israeli identity. Trump’s White Nationalist ideology demands such racial discrimination, masquerading as social justice for the majority.
The fractured Democratic Party has had a leadership vacuum since President Barack Obama termed out. At this point, Gavin Newsom is the face of national resistance to Trump’s efforts to destroy the fabric of American government, society and economy. In keeping with the title of his show, Lawrence O’Donnell gets The Last Word: “Gavin Newsom is now leading California to the rescue of the USA, to the rescue of democracy in America. Trump finally provoked the largest and most powerful state in the union.” Trump poked the Golden Bear, and may deeply regret it.
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