CalWatchdog Morning Read – January 27

27 Jan, 2017 by CalWatchdog Staff

Texas shows CA the way in fighting Washington
Legislators want to battle “fake news”
Property insurance on the rise?
Environmental laws probably can’t block Trump’s wall
Law may be against Trump on sanctuary cities

Good morning! TGIF. It’s all Trump, all the time now.

Trump’s signing of executive orders Wednesday to begin planning for construction of a wall along the Mexican border, to withhold federal funds from local governments that don’t cooperate with immigration authorities and to increase efforts to track down illegal immigrants immediately prompted Senate President Kevin de Leon to announce plans to sue the Trump administration with the assistance of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Further lawsuits seem likely as the Republican Trump continues to reverse policies that heavily Democratic California embraced under President Obama.

There’s a road map for how a large, wealthy state can resist a president whose edicts it doesn’t like: Texas in the past eight years under Obama.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

Distractions: “In the wake of a turbulent election season and a disturbing new study on the credulity of many political news consumers, a handful of California legislators have put forward new bills designed to ensure the state’s public schools make students aware that not everything purporting to be factual reportage is as true or unbiased as it seems.” CalWatchdog has more.
Taxes: “GOP tax plan could boost prices for Californians’ (property) insurance,” reports CalWatchdog.
Trump’s wall: “With California’s political leaders in full resistance mode over President Trump’s executive order to build a wall on the Mexican border, Senate leader Kevin de León, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and others have floated an idea to try to stop it: the state’s famously stringent environmental laws. But legal experts say any effort to use state and federal environmental rules to block the wall faces extremely slim chances of being successful.” The Los Angeles Times has more.
Sanctuary cities: “The executive order Trump issued Wednesday putting cities and counties on notice that they would lose federal funding if they didn’t start cooperating with immigration agents has broad implications for California, a state that aggressively protects its undocumented population from deportation. But while the order allowed Trump to boast that he is fulfilling a campaign pledge, it also commits him to a fight that he is not necessarily poised to win.” The Los Angeles Times has more.