Trump won. Will Newsom call a special session of the California Legislature to respond?
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Word around the Capitol campfire is that California Gov. Gavin Newsom may be considering calling yet another special session of the — this time in response to the election of Republican former President Donald Trump.
Newsom has been a nemesis of the former, and future, president, serving as a political thorn in Trump's side.
"California will seek to work with the incoming president — but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law," Newsom said Wednesday afternoon after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded to Trump.
It's unclear what sort of legislation the governor hypothetically might have in mind that would require immediate legislative action, but state lawmakers have not been shy in the past about promoting the Golden State as a bastion against Trump's conservative policies, whether on immigration, LGBTQ issues, abortion or other topics.
California Democratic Party looks poised to continue its vice-like grip on both the and the , with supermajorities in each house that appear to have survived the 2024 election.
But there is one obstacle that even Newsom and the Democratic supermajority would struggle to overcome: Time.
As longtime Capitol lobbyist Chris Micheli said in a email sent out Wednesday morning on the topic, "I believe that is unlikely to occur because of procedural hurdles in the California Constitution."
Those hurdles include a Nov. 15 deadline for any bill to be presented to the governor, and a Nov. 30 deadline for this Legislature to adjourn sine die. That's not a lot of time for lawmakers to craft a legislative response and get it signed.
However, Micheli notes that Newsom could call a special session for the next Legislature, whose members take office Dec. 2.
'MY KEVIN'
Former California Rep. Kevin McCarthy told CBS on Wednesday that he would not take a role in the Trump administration, even if the president-elect asked, with the Bakersfield Republican saying he was "better to serve him from the outside."
McCarthy then brushed off credit for boosting "Donald Trump's political fortunes" after in-party ire over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol; in 2021, McCarthy flew down to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort just three weeks after Jan. 6, and after the House voted to impeach the then-president over inciting rioters.
"I don't think I'm that powerful that I brought somebody back," McCarthy said, "maybe, if I get some credit. I really believe that Democrats persecuting him, taking him to court, you can see it in the polling, you can see it — they elevated him to an opportunity."
The Bakersfield Republican said he spoke to Trump Tuesday night and twice on Monday. McCarthy, whom Trump once referred to fondly as "My Kevin," left the House in 2023 after being ousted by his peers as speaker, a role he long coveted and held for just nine months.
McCarthy said that he does not think tech billionaire and conservative firebrand Elon Musk should join Trump's cabinet "because he still has to work, he still has to run his other companies."
"What I believe we should take, not just Elon, but everybody else that has good ideas — how do we make government more efficient and more accountable?" McCarthy said to ask people like Musk.
McCarthy scoffed at concerns from people who have worked with Trump who claimed that it would be dangerous for him to take the Oval Office, saying the former president "is not such a hardened person, philosophically, in a hard right position. He has positions that are unique, that would go to the middle."
"We don't have dictators," McCarthy added. "I don't care if they want to be, they can't be."
McCarthy said Democrats should take this moment to rebuild their party, and questioned whether replacing President Joe Biden with Harris at the top of the ticket was the right move.
"He would have done better in Pennsylvania — I don't think he would have won," McCarthy said. "But you changed democracy in a manner that you didn't give people a voice, because I don't believe the Democrats would have picked Kamala."
McCarthy also said had Harris picked Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, the presidential race might have been closer.
"I thought it all came down to Pennsylvania," McCarthy said. "I thought it's more about the policy of economics."
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"To our LGBTQ+ friends and loved ones, we want you to know that we are prepared for the fight ahead. California has already enacted some of the strongest laws in the nation to help protect LGBTQ+ people from the damaging effects of a second Trump administration."
- Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang, in a statement following news that Trump has won a second term in office.
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