Gavin Newsom just told California voters to go to hell.
His attorney general spent $19 million of their money filing lawsuits against Trump – and left the crime law they voted for without a single dollar.
Now Newsom's handpicked Attorney General just held a press conference to brag about it.
The Accounting Trick Bonta Doesn't Want You to Notice
Eighty-two lawsuits against the Trump administration in 18 months.
Price tag: $19.2 million in taxpayer money.
Bonta's spin: that $19 million "saved" $207 billion in federal funding.
Here's what he left out.
That $207 billion isn't money Bonta pulled from anywhere – it's the standard federal allocation of Medicaid matching funds, transportation grants, and social safety net spending that flows to California by formula, regardless of what any state attorney general does in court.
He attached California's name to multi-state ideological lawsuits and then claimed sole credit for every federal dollar that kept flowing.
https://twitter.com/amyforsandiego/status/2085455039053869332?s=20
That's not a return on investment.
That's a politician taking credit for the sun rising.
And the losses don't appear anywhere in his spreadsheet.
California sued to keep $4 billion in high-speed rail funding – then quietly dropped the case.
Why?
Because CBS News just reported that California's own rail authority never bought a single train – not one – despite promising a federal judge it would execute the train contract by December 2025.
The deadline came.
The board meeting was canceled.
The line in the 2026 business plan for train procurement reads "TBD."
Newsom called the funding cut a "political stunt."
His own rail authority's conduct told the real story.
The Law Californians Voted For Is Sitting in Sacramento's Trash
In November 2024, California voters passed Proposition 36 – not narrowly, but by nearly 70 percent.
Every single one of California's 58 counties voted yes.
The measure was direct: stiffer penalties for serial retail thieves and hard-drug traffickers, paired with court-supervised treatment for repeat offenders.
Californians had watched their cities become open-air drug markets and their stores get emptied by organized theft rings.
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They voted.
Sacramento ignored them.
For the second consecutive year, Newsom's budget allocated zero new dollars for Proposition 36 implementation.
The California District Attorneys Association, the California State Sheriffs' Association, and the Chief Probation Officers of California issued a joint statement in January: "Without adequate resources, law enforcement, prosecutors, and probation officers are left with our hands tied – unable to fully carry out the law and deliver the results Californians demanded at the ballot box."
Counties are now eating the costs themselves – treatment beds, court capacity, incarceration expenses – with Sacramento sending them nothing.
Sacramento County is already staring down a $101 million deficit.
But the money for Bonta's press-release lawsuits?
That appeared instantly.
The legislature authorized up to $25 million for federal litigation before Bonta had filed a single brief.
Sacramento Has Made Its Priorities Clear
The math here isn't complicated.
Voters demand safer streets – Sacramento funds lawsuits instead.
Voters approve a crime law – Sacramento zeroes out the budget line.
Newsom went further than just ignoring Prop 36.
He signed legislation to fund the lawsuit campaign against Trump – then asked Trump for $40 billion in wildfire aid.
That destroyed any goodwill left in Washington, DC.
https://twitter.com/MarkDimitruk/status/2085155048061878519?s=20
Republican Assemblymember Natasha Johnson said out loud what every working Californian already knows: the state claims it has no money for public safety while tens of millions materialize the moment Bonta wants to file another lawsuit against a federal cabinet secretary.
Californians paying the highest state income taxes in the nation, facing the highest cost of living in the country, watching their neighbors flee to Texas and Nevada – those Californians are being told there is simply no money to enforce the law they voted for.
But Sacramento found $19 million to sue the man they lost to.
That's not governance.
That's a tantrum dressed up as public service.
The people running California aren't fighting for the residents they're supposed to serve.
They're fighting for the cameras.
They're fighting for the headlines.
They're fighting to remain relevant on a national stage while the state they were elected to run collapses around them.
Sources:
- John Mac Ghlionn, "California wasted $19 million suing Trump – and no, the numbers don't add up," New York Post, August 5, 2026.
- "California lawsuits against Trump Administration cost taxpayers $19 million," The Center Square, August 5, 2026.
- "California drops lawsuit seeking to reinstate federal funding for high-speed rail project," Fox Business, December 28, 2025.
- "Newsom blamed Trump for high-speed rail's $4 billion funding cut. Records show California never bought the trains it promised," CBS News, August 2, 2026.
- "Governor's Proposed 2026–2027 Budget Again Fails to Fund Voter-Approved Proposition 36," Chief Probation Officers of California, January 9, 2026.
- "Anti-crime Prop. 36 may go without funding in 2026," The Center Square, February 12, 2026.
