While President Donald Trump and Republicans take drastic measures to curtail federal spending – including possible cuts to Medicaid – local Democrats in Congress have no illusions about their limited power to stop them.
“They have the votes,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a veteran Democrat. “And we don’t.”
That reality has forced Lofgren, who represents parts of San Jose and the South Bay, and other Bay Area Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives to consider their role in the opposition as Trump continues his fast-paced campaign to downsize the federal government with right-hand man Elon Musk, the world’s richest person.
Along with angry tweets and speeches on the House floor, Democrats are trying three tactics to raise awareness and galvanize a new anti-Trump resistance: lawsuits, town halls and street protests.
As Democrats hone their approach, concerned constituents are flooding their offices with messages imploring them to stop Trump’s actions, several representatives told the Bay Area News Group. Recently, most are concerned that Republicans will cut social security and safety net benefits.
“This is a direct quote from a woman who called my office the other day: ‘I feel unsafe with this president,’” Rep. Kevin Mullin, a Democrat representing the San Francisco Peninsula, said in an email.
To Republicans, the Democratic approach smacks of confusion, said Shane Connolly, past president of the Silicon Valley GOP.
“They seem to be struggling to gain their footing with a president that is just going at a breakneck pace,” he said.
Behind the scenes, Lofgren and House Democrats formed a task force to help coordinate the slew of lawsuits challenging Trump’s policies in court. Though members of Congress can’t legally sue the administration themselves, Lofgren said, representatives are supporting and tracking this flurry of litigation.
More than 70 lawsuits have been filed against Trump’s policies by interest groups, federal employees and Democratic attorneys general, including California’s Rob Bonta. With the broad support of Democrats in the California legislature and $25 million in additional funding for lawsuits against Trump, Bonta has already filed challenges to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Trump’s executive order blocking birthright citizenship and more.
The DOGE team has roamed from agency to agency, tapping into computer systems, digging into budgets and searching for waste, fraud and abuse, while lawsuits pile up claiming Trump and DOGE are violating the law.
Taking on the traditional role of the minority party, Democrats have also sought information and expressed concern in letters to officials at federal agencies.
After a report that Musk’s agents accessed the sensitive personal records of thousands of disaster victims, California Sen. Alex Padilla and eleven other Democratic senators sent a letter on Thursday to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency seeking an explanation.
Elsewhere, Democrats have turned to the streets.
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier found himself in that situation on Sunday at a sleek Tesla showroom in Walnut Creek, when the East Bay congressman joined about 50 other people protesting Musk’s major role in the Trump administration. Thousands of protesters gathered sporadically in the Bay Area last week to voice anger at Musk and to urge Tesla drivers to dump their stock and sell their electric cars.
In a phone interview, DeSaulnier said Trump and Musk “are two of the biggest narcissists in the world who are just consumed by getting attention, no matter what the consequences are to other human beings, and clearly have no understanding of U.S. law or the constitution.”
As part of a national Democratic call for a week of “visibility,” DeSaulnier and fellow East Bay Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell are both hosting town halls with constituents this week.
A staffer for DeSaulnier said that more than 1,000 people had registered for his town hall on Thursday at St. Mary’s College of California in Moraga — too many people to fit in the venue.
The topic? “Fighting back against the administration.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.