At a hearing in Boston in March, U.S. District Court Judge Myong J. Joun asked lawyers to form a state coalition to what they would lose if he did not immediately intervene to block the hundreds of millions of dollars in the Trump administration’s cuts to teacher training programs.
“Your honor, the situation is horrible,” California agent. General Laura Fal responded. “Now, as we said, plans across the state are facing the possibility of closure, disbandment and termination.”
Joun quickly issued a temporary restraining order to prevent cuts as "arbitrary and capricious", a victory for the United States. But less than a month later, the Supreme Court overturned the ruling and found that states did not refute government claims that it would be "unlikely to recover" the funds if the lawsuit was paid in the lawsuit.
This is a loss for the country, but it is not the end of the battle in teacher training. This is also just a bigger legal war between California and its allies and the Trump administration, and it is one of many ongoing court struggles.
According to an analysis by the Times, California challenged the administration in court on average twice a week during the first 100 days of President Trump’s presidency. It has filed 15 lawsuits against the government, all of which are filed, among other states, and has filed summary to support other litigants in prosecution of the federal government in at least 18 cases.
Attorneys in California. General Rob Bonta has been working hard to draft and propose complex legal arguments against Trump's immigration policy
Along the way, the state won, which slowed Trump’s agenda and could permanently block some of his policies. It won multiple temporary restraining orders and preliminary bans, blocking Trump's policy measures, including trillions of dollars of frozen federal funds that Congress has allocated to states, and Trump's executive order ends the birth of citizenship for certain immigrants in the U.S.-born children.
California also suffered losses in court, with judges allowing administrative policy to take action in some cases, while the state advocates a final reversal. The High Court reversed several restrictions approved by national court judges, including one order for teachers to prepare grants, while another prevented Trump from mass firing of federal probation employees.
The state has also been denied that an emergency order prevents Musk from exercising his seat on the federal budget.
Bonta acknowledged the setbacks but noted that they only rejected emergency relief - without any final conclusions about the basic legitimacy of government actions or the merits of the state challenging them.
"We have not actually lost any cases at the moment, and we have achieved significant success," Bonta said.
All lawsuits in the state remain active, each depending on when the stage is filed and how quickly the judge responds.
California filed its first lawsuit against Trump’s order to revoke his birthright citizenship on January 21, the day after Trump opened. It believes that the order is a clear violation of Article 14 of the Constitution, which states that: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and bound by their jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States and the country in which they reside.”
Other groups have sued for the same reason, with three federal judges having issued orders to make policy nationwide unconstitutional. The Trump administration appealed the rulings, believing that district judges should not issue national orders and that the Supreme Court will examine the theoretical point on May 15.
It is unclear whether the High Court will rule on the constitutionality of the Trump order or whether it will only make a decision on the state power of district judges. Either way, Bonta says he's optimistic about winning in the end.
California and its allies also achieved early victory through the Second Litigation lawsuit, challenging the Office of Management and Budget Memorandum, freezing trillions of dollars in federal funding, awaiting the Trump administration’s review of whether spending is consistent with the president’s agenda.
A federal judge blocked the freeze and repeatedly ordered the release of funds. The Trump administration said it is complying with the orders — including recently last week when the administration filed a “compliance notice” with a court order to release the federal emergency management agency funded Bonta’s office that believes it was detained for violations of the court’s order.
California also won a court order that prevents Musk's efficient employees from accessing sensitive Treasury data, although the order has been modified to allow a specific Doge employee to access such data.
It won a permanent ban to prevent the NIH funding from the National Institutes of Health research, although the government said it would appeal the ruling.
The judge is reviewing the review briefings of California and the Trump administration in several other lawsuits, including claims that the state needs emergency relief, and claims that the government's lawsuit lacks merit.
These include the state’s lawsuit in which the Education Department challenged mass shootings, billions of dollars in health and education funding, Trump’s executive orders require voters to show proof of citizenship and restrict mail votes, and Trump’s massive tariffs on foreign trading partners.
In the voting case, the court is considering whether lawsuits filed by California with other Massachusetts should be merged with similar lawsuits filed in the District of Columbia, and the judge has blocked some of Trump's orders. In a tariff case filed by Bonta along with Gov. Gavin Newsom, the court is considering the Trump administration’s request to transfer the lawsuit to the U.S. Court of International Trade.
California's latest lawsuit raises a threat to the Trump administration's federal funding for schools with diversification, equity and inclusion, just filed Friday.
California also supports other litigants who challenge the Trump administration.
Through so-called court underwear, the state has questioned the legitimacy of the Trump administration's ban on transgender people serving in the military, threats to gender-based health care for transgender young people, suspended refugee services, demolished asylum protection, revoked shelters, revoked temporary protective status of Venezuelans and willing to visit Venezuelan groups and guardians, and declared it.
It also questioned the government's attacks on the demolition of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the removal of members of the National Labor and Industrial Relations Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, and several law firms that have angered the president.
The judge stopped several of these policies due to the lawsuit, including a ban on transgender service members, and Trump is now asking the Supreme Court to take action.
Litigation Hill has continued California's leadership in Trump's first administration, which involved about 120 lawsuits over four years. The White House and other supporters of the president have strongly criticized the latest lawsuit, the same one for California liberals, who claim they are detrimental to their own voters by refusing to respect the will of voter Trump.
"In recent years, California's dreams have become California's nightmare as dystopian scenarios of crime and homelessness and open-air drug use soared," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to the Times. "The Trump administration is trying to restore America's greatness and if California Democrats work with us, or at least don't waste taxpayers' resources to tilt - the California people will become infinitely better."
A U.S. Department of Justice spokesman said the Justice Department “will continue to defend President Trump’s agenda in court no matter how many frivolous lawsuits are filed.”
Bonta and other critics of the president have different views on this. They noted that the state often wins when prosecuting the first Trump administration, and said they also hope it wins many current cases, too.
The challenge is faster, they say, as Trump violated the law at an astonishing rate and had a significant impact on American democracy.
"If he was doing something legal, we wouldn't have him in court," Bonta said.
Michael Sozan, a senior researcher at the Center for Progress in the Liberal Party, recently co-wrote a lengthy report accusing Trump of "smashing the constitutional and legal guardrails to build an authoritarian president." The report cites many of the same Trump administration steps prosecuted by California.
State such as California "are a very important bastion against the new empire's presidency" and that attorney generals of Bonta and other states "will also play a key role in the coming months" as Trump "tryes to test the boundaries of the law, court precedents and the boundaries of democracy and democracy."
Bonta said California will respond “every time” if Trump and other officials “continue to break the law.”
"We have a full can of gasoline," he said. "We're ready."