California Democrats in the state Legislature were poised Thursday to approve $50 million to fund fresh and anticipated lawsuits against the Trump administration and fund legal defenses for immigrants facing deportation as part of a splashy special session called by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But when members of the state Assembly gathered in Sacramento on Thursday morning, Democrats broke into a private huddle for 45 minutes. When they emerged, they declined to vote on the proposal. The state Senate approved the plans last week, and Democrats have said for months that the funding package is urgent.
Democrats and Republicans proceeded to offer wildly different explanations for the delay.
A spokesperson for Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said lawmakers needed more time to respond to a sweeping spending freeze attempted this week by the new administration of President Donald Trump, which is causing widespread confusion and chaos even after a federal judge paused the plan.
“In the Assembly, we are going to look closely at the special session legal defense bills to ensure they are airtight and protect all Californians against these new threats,” Nick Miller, a spokesperson for Rivas, said in an email.
Republicans, meanwhile, said that some Democrats had cold feet over a provision dealing with immigration. Assembly Bill 2 would provide $25 million to nonprofits that defend immigrants from deportation. State Republicans have blasted the bill and contend that it would fund the legal defenses of immigrants convicted of crimes.
In a symbolic move, Republican Assembly members planned to introduce an amendment clarifying that the funds could not be used for an immigrant convicted of a felony who is living illegally in the country, said Jim Stanley, a spokesperson for Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher. Because Democrats hold super-majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, the proposed change was unlikely to pass.
But in a potential departure from Democrats’ vehement defenses of immigrants, Newsom reportedly supports changing the bill to cut off legal aid to immigrants with criminal records, according to a report by Sacramento TV station KCRA.
Representatives for Rivas, Newsom and Senate President Mike McGuire and did not respond when asked to confirm or deny the report. Several Bay Area Democratic lawmakers were also tight-lipped about the possibility of a last-minute amendment and declined to comment.
Stanley said the delay “is pretty standard Newsom: Come in at the last minute and blow everything up, and cause a whole lot of people to scramble.”
If the proposal is amended in the Assembly, the Senate would have to approve the new version of the bill.
The other bill in the special session is a $25 million allocation to the state Department of Justice for lawsuits challenging anticipated federal policies on climate change spending, immigration, abortion access and civil rights.
Attorney General Rob Bonta — a Democrat widely expected to be considering a run for governor in 2026 — has already joined at least two multi-state legal challenges to stall Trump’s actions revoking birthright citizenship and potentially freezing trillions in federal spending.
California sued Trump’s prior administration 123 times and won more than two-thirds of the cases, said Bonta, who has vowed for months to challenge actions by Trump that threaten immigrants or federal funding that California relies upon.