LA takes on Trump 2.0

Nov 19, 2024

Members of immigration advocacy groups use a megaphone and hold signs.

Members of immigration advocacy groups demand the City Council enact an ordinance making Los Angeles into a sanctuary city outside Los Angeles City Hall in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. | Damian Dovarganes/AP

PLAYING DEFENSE: Los Angeles today passed a long-in-the-works sanctuary policy prohibiting the use of city resources for federal immigration enforcement, previewing a looming fight with Donald Trump’s incoming administration over potential mass deportations.

It’s also the first major offensive against Trump in California over a key policy area that will divide the federal government and the nation’s largest population of undocumented immigrants — 1.8 million as of 2022.

Major questions remain about how the Los Angeles Police Department will respond to the ordinance.

“The city of L.A. will not allow city personnel, city funds to in any way support the incoming administration’s desires for a mass deportation mechanism,” Karla Aguayo, director of legal services for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, told Playbook. “Los Angeles will stand loud and proud against that.”

But Aguayo said advocates will need to ensure Los Angeles County Police Chief Jim McDonnell — who was recently selected by Mayor Karen Bass and confirmed by councilmembers this month — operates in line with the ordinance. Some fear he may cooperate with federal immigration authorities as he did during Trump’s first term when he was L.A. County sheriff even though McDonnell pledged to protect immigrants during his confirmation hearing.

Los Angeles has leaned on similar policies for decades. Although this ordinance is enshrined in city law, the practical effect is not a major change from what’s already in existence.

It's been in the works for more than a year, but Bass moved to expedite it after Trump’s election, setting up a showdown with the president-elect who posted on Truth Social yesterday his plans to use the military for mass deportations of immigrants in the country illegally.

Former Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive directive with similar elements during Trump’s first term. In 2017, then California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a statewide sanctuary law barring state and local law enforcement from taking part in immigration enforcement and restricting cooperation with federal officials. The Supreme Court in 2020 declined to review a lower court ruling allowing the law.

The current ordinance’s co-author Nithya Raman said Garcetti’s directive and internal Los Angeles Police Department policies currently shape the city’s relationship with federal immigration agencies.

Councilmembers said the city needs the ordinance to ensure Los Angeles’ large immigrant population feels safe calling police to report crimes and other emergencies. About 35 percent of the city’s population is foreign-born, according to Census data.

“We don’t have a safer city if people are living in fear and hiding in the shadows and unable to come forward and cooperate with law enforcement in manners that we need them to,” Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said.

Outgoing Councilmember Paul Krekorian, anticipating the inevitable conservative media frenzy the ordinance will surely spark, emphasized the deep local history leading to this moment. Decades ago, the city enacted an order preventing police from questioning residents for the sole purpose of determining their immigration status.

“I hope that the demagoguery that undoubtedly will begin at a national level as soon as we pass this ordinance will also be mindful of the fact that by enacting this ordinance — by the continuing practices that we’ve been engaged in in the city for 45 years — we are actually keeping Angelenos safer,” he said.

The City Attorney will finalize amendments before returning it to the council for a final vote. Bass will then have 10 days to sign it.

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IT’S TUESDAY AFTERNOON. This is California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check on California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to lholden@politico.com.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

An election worker's gloved hands check signatures on mail-in ballots.

At least one county involved in a too-close-to-call House race is blaming a new law for the delay in vote-counting. | Richard Vogel/AP

DO THE HUSTLE: As we reported this morning, election-watchers and conspiracy-mongers alike are getting restless as they wait out California’s slow ballot-counting process.

At least one county involved in a too-close-to-call House race is blaming a new law for the delay in vote-counting — much to the author’s chagrin.

Assemblymember Marc Berman this year penned a bill setting a uniform statewide certification date for the Nov. 5 election. Under the bill, county elections officials must wait until 28 days after the election to certify their vote counts, with the goal of providing clarity around the deadline for voters to “cure” or fix ballots with missing signatures or other issues.

Donna Linder, the clerk-recorder and registrar of voters in Stanislaus County, told Playbook her team of election workers is putting in fewer hours per day compared to past elections to cut down on overtime costs, now that the county cannot certify its results until at least Dec. 3.

"Counties probably aren't spending as many hours each day processing a ballot," she said when asked about the speed of the statewide vote count.

Stanislaus is among the counties in House District 13, where GOP Rep. John Duarte and Democrat Adam Gray are still locked in a close contest.

“It's pretty disappointing that counties are pointing to that bill as an excuse to count slower,” Berman told Playbook. “That is not at all the purpose of that bill. And when we ran that bill, no county reached out to us to say, ‘Oh, if you give voters some certainty around the date by which they have to cure a ballot, we will then count slower.’”

The new certification deadline expires in January. Berman called the vote-counting situation “an unintended consequence that we’ll fix.” He is talking to staff about seeking information on “why this is going so slowly, and what we can do to speed it up.”

“So the wheels are in motion, but we don't have a solution yet,” he said.

— with help from Tyler Katzenberger

ON THE BEATS

Chickens stand in a holding pen.

California has identified its 27th human case of avian flu. | Terry Chea/AP

FLU THE COOP: Another suspected human case of avian flu has popped up in California, this time in a small child in urban Alameda County.

This is the state’s 27th human case, and it’s the first time California has identified an infection outside of dairy workers. Cows have gotten sick at 335 dairies in the state, and workers have been infected after coming into contact with them.

Public health officials say they’re investigating the possibility that this latest case in Alameda County came from contact with an infected wild bird.

Despite the size of the outbreak and the fact that the child attends a daycare, the California Department of Public Health is urging calm, saying the risk to the public is still low and pasteurized dairy is still safe to eat.

“It’s natural for people to be concerned, and we want to reinforce for parents, caregivers and families that based on the information and data we have, we don’t think the child was infectious,” state Public Health Officer Dr. Tomás Aragón said in a statement. “And no human-to-human spread of bird flu has been documented in any country for more than 15 years.” — Rachel Bluth

Policy change is coming—be the pro who saw it first. Access POLITICO Pro’s Issue Analysis series on what the transition means for agriculture, defense, health care, tech, and more. Strengthen your strategy.

CLEANING HOUSE: The California State Auditor visited 18 schools to evaluate their cleanliness and the results were … less than great. Some schools had easily avoidable problems like storing hazardous cleaning supplies and propane tanks in classrooms.

Others had leaky roofs and stained ceiling tiles, examples of a widespread maintenance backlog that a recently-passed state school bond measure will attempt to address. The auditor recommended that California set aside other dedicated school facilities funding, which it doesn’t currently do. Instead, districts have to secure state funding and pay a matching portion, usually about half, to repair buildings. — Blake Jones

WHAT WE'RE READING TODAY

— Lobbyists went on a record-breaking spending spree in the California Legislature this past summer. (CalMatters)

— Is California an answer or a problem for Democrats as the party faces an impending fall from power in Washington? (Los Angeles Times)

— Immigrant tech workers are scrambling to secure visas before Trump’s second term begins. (Forbes)

AROUND THE STATE

— A so-called “bomb cyclone” blowing in from the Pacific could drop up to 8 inches of rain on parts of Northern California this week. (Associated Press)

— Kern and Tulare county voters reelected Republican Vince Fong to the Assembly — and Congress. Now, their local governments will foot the bill for a special election. (CalMatters)

— Oakland officials accidentally published a bombshell draft report warning the city faced looming “insolvency” if it didn’t fix its financial problems. Then they tried to scrub it from the internet. (Oaklandside)

— compiled by Tyler Katzenberger

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