LOS ANGELES — In the months since the election of Donald J. Trump, California has turned into a laboratory of resistance — championing legal, legislative and political strategies to counter Republican policies while pressing the kind of new Democratic policies that presumably will not be coming out of Washington anytime soon.
The state lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor, said California could use its stringent environmental protection law to block Mr. Trump from building a wall along the Mexican border. In Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers are pressing bills to expand environmental protections, provide legal assistance for immigrants facing deportation and raise gasoline taxes to pay for highway construction.
“An earned-income tax credit,” said Anthony Rendon, the speaker of the Assembly. “Huge infusions for early-childhood education. Those types of things are certainly things that we are interested in doing.”
Democratic members of the California delegation to Congress are lining up to announce they will not attend the inauguration of Mr. Trump. And in Los Angeles, Sheila Kuehl, a member of the powerful county board of supervisors, has started what she has called “Operation Monkey Wrench,” urging people, including state and federal government workers, to systematically disrupt Trump policies that run counter to California laws and policies.
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“I am encouraging people to engage in any way they can to slow down anything that might come from the federal departments and Congress,” she said. “You can’t just be dormant when fascism is growing.”
It may not be “Calexit” — the name of a decidedly quixotic campaign for California to withdraw from the union — but it is turning into what is, for all intents and purposes, a slow-motion secession. ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/california-strikes-a-bold-pose-as-vanguard-of-the-resistance.html
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