The Resistance: Capitol Weekly conference recap

On Wednesday Feb 26^th, Capitol Weekly held its first conference of 2025, and the only one of four this year that was online-only. Throughout three panels and the keynote address by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, participants discussed the state’s longstanding battles with President Donald Trump in three key issue areas – health care, the environment and immigration. Below is a very condensed recap of the conversations held in those panels. The full panel presentations and transcripts will be available on the Capitol Weekly site very soon. 

Panel I: Health Care
In this panel moderated by Samantha Young of KFF Health News, four panelists debated how California legislators can address the challenges posed by federal policy changes affecting the state’s health care system.

Panelists included former Sen. Dr. Richard Pan, Beth Malinowski of SEIU, Amanda McAllister-Wallner of Health Access and former Assemblymember Devon Mathis.

The discussion kicked off with concerns about what the proposed budget endorsed by the Republicans in the U.S. House on Wednesday could mean for Medicaid in California. Panelists agreed that if ultimately passed in the Senate and signed by President Donald Trump, it could pave the way for $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid federally, threatening health care access for 15 million Californians.

“I do think it’s important that our audience is hearing that last night’s vote does not end the activity [and] does not end the conversation. But what it does do is send a really strong signal to everyday Californians, regardless of where you live, regardless of where you work in California, that now’s the time for you to be sharing your story with everyone,” Malinowski said.

Without action, panelists warned that California could see hospital closures and increased financial stress on local clinics, which will hit rural and underserved communities the hardest.

When Young asked how the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health Human Services secretary could impact California’s vaccine policies, Mathis jumped on the opportunity to raise concerns about vaccines and parental rights. When Mathis’s comments veered off into widely disputed conspiracy theories, McAllister-Wallner refocused the discussion on how California legislators can counteract federal actions under the Trump administration.

Panelists stressed the need for California to defend its health care policies in order to protect access to care, which relies heavily on Medicaid for funding. Without action, panelists warned that California could see hospital closures and increased financial stress on local clinics, which will hit rural and underserved communities the hardest.

“All of those things are very real possibilities if we aren’t steadfast in defending our healthcare system right now and defending against these attacks and these potential cuts,” McAllister-Wallner said. “There’s important defensive work to do and ways that California can keep moving the ball forward and make our healthcare system work better for folks– by helping to make it more affordable, by investing in affordability assistance, by tackling [the] high costs of healthcare at the Office of Healthcare Affordability, by improving provider directories so that people can actually find a provider when they need it [and] by making sure that charity care is available.”

Panel II: The Environment
The panel examined the impact of the slew of executive orders issued by President Trump over the last five weeks addressing water, energy and climate policy, and how California might respond to these directives.

Kip Lipper, Chief Policy Advisor on Energy and Environment to Senate pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Geyserville), acknowledged the sheer breadth and speed of the policy orders coming from D.C., saying things are literally changing by the hour. To his point, Lipper noted that much of what those orders do is unwind previous EOs issued by President Joe Biden.

“Trump rescinded 11 Biden environmental and natural resources executive orders, including ones that prohibited offshore oil drilling and affects the infrastructure Investment Act,” Lipper said, adding “We’ve seen just today a submittal to the Congress to undo some of the Biden climate regulations under the Congressional Review Act. And then we’ve seen international actions and directions to our military that directly affect the environment as well.”

Victoria Rome, director of California government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted that her organization, along with other environmental groups, has already filed suit against the Trump administration over an EO that seeks to ramp up offshore oil drilling.

Rome noted that previous administrations had already removed oceans as areas of new drilling, and that “those protections can’t simply be undone by an executive order.”

Rome further noted the NRDC and others are also gearing up for a court battle over the president’s efforts to “undermine California’s unique authority to set our own emission standards, which have been adopted by other states.”

But Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president and CEO of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), noted that California also faces significant energy challenges. In that vein, she stated her hope that the president’s actions will offer the silver lining of opening up “a genuine conversation” about how California can realistically reach both its climate goals and also fill the state’s bottomless thirst for more supply.

“There were 40 refineries in the state in the early 80s, and now we have nine that produce gasoline and diesel,” she said. “And by the end of the year we’re going to have eight. And we still have 40 million people driving 36 million cars and trucks every day.”

Keynote: AG Rob Bonta
The man who even more than Gov. Gavin Newsom will spearhead the resistance to the Trump administration, Bonta vowed to do just that. Bonta noted his office has filed five lawsuits to date against the administration, and that his predecessor, former Attorney General Xavier Becerra, had filed more than 120 during the first Trump administration. But Bonta also reiterated that will happen only when the president or his administration color outside the legal lines of its authority.

“Let me just be clear about one thing. Any action that we take as the California Department of Justice, as Democratic attorneys general, is fully dependent on what the president does. If the president and his administration follow the law, comply with the Constitution, we will not sue,” he said.

Bonta noted the intense anxiety many Californians have expressed to him over the last month-plus.

“People are scared. They’re worried. They’re anxious. They’re uncertain about what’s happening in the federal government and if it’ll impact their lives and their loved ones. They are uncertain about what’s real and what’s rhetoric, confused about what’s bluster and what could create tangible changes to our laws, our institutions, and our policies,” he said.

All of which, he said, is by design.

“Sadly, I think it’s pretty clear that that’s part of the president’s strategy. Flood the zone, overwhelm us with a barrage of damaging, dangerous and illegal executive orders and actions that impede on the laws and values that make America so strong.”

“People are scared. They’re worried. They’re anxious. They’re uncertain about what’s happening in the federal government and if it’ll impact their lives and their loved ones – Rob Bonta.”

He also expressed his appreciation for lawmakers allocating $25 million specifically to fund any legal actions his office takes, and vowed to “use it wisely and prudently and efficiently.” He said there is no plan at the moment to ask lawmakers for additional funds, but for now his office is “not overwhelmed or under-resourced.”

Panel III: Immigration
If California is a primary force in the resistance to the Trump administration, panelists on Capitol Weekly’s third panel of the day suggested the issue of immigration is sure to be a critical front in that battle.

Public Affairs consultant and former deputy press secretary for the California Republican Party Luis Alvarado said that he expects immigration to remain a priority for president because he and his followers believe their stance on the issue is what got him re-elected.

“Immigration is a sweet spot for them,” he said.

State Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, said battling the president on this topic is important, but tricky, because she believes he’s not trying to do something substantive. He’s just trying to terrorize communities of people of color.

“I don’t think Trump or the administration are looking for a policy,” she said. “They’re looking to scare the community.”

Kevin R. Johnson, a UC Davis law professor, said that Trump’s divisive rhetoric, calling Mexicans “criminals” and “rapists” and accusing Haitians of eating pets, could have a “generational” effect on people of color’s sense of belonging within the United States.

“We should know at this point,” he said, “that race is at the bottom this.”

Responding to a question from the moderator, Los Angeles Times reporter Andrea Castillo, about the Trump administration’s to end temporary protective status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians, David Trujillo, executive director of ACLU California Action said that “TPS holders are more than just their contributions to our economy but they do contribute massively” the country’s economy – “billions of dollars.”

“They’re vital members of our community,” he said of immigrations who are designated TPS, meaning they are allowed to be in the country without the threat of deportation for a limited time because they come from a country where catastrophic conditions exist.

In closing, Alvarado – a former Republican, now an independent – said opponents of the Trump administration’s immigration policies can’t assume that it trying to act reasonably, with the best interests of the country in mind.

“This is completely open warfare,” he said.

Capitol Weekly reporters Ellie Appleby, Leah Lentz and Brian Joseph contributed to this story.