State Elected Leaders Highlight Rights Protected and Billions Restored by California’s Legal Defense Fund

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KEYT) – California's Office of Attorney General shared the results of the agency's annual report to the state's Legislature Tuesday.

According to the Attorney General's Office, California has filed 82 lawsuits -with the state's top lawyer leading or co-leading 55 of them- as well as 120 amicus briefs in support of legislation challenging the Trump Administration's actions over the last 18 months.

As a result of that flurry of litigation, the state's top legal representative secured 45 preliminary relief orders, 21 final orders, and, in eight particular cases, the Trump Administration declined to even argue the merits of their policies in court the Attorney General's Office noted in a press release Tuesday.

Some of those cases have even made it to the Supreme Court including litigation protecting the right for Californians to vote on new Congressional boundaries, ending the use of military personnel for large-scale domestic law enforcement, and ensuring the federal government's compliance with U.S. Constitution's right to receive citizenship at birth.

"We've filed 82 lawsuits in about as many weeks, and we've delivered real, vital, impactful relief for California families amounting to more than $200 billion," California Attorney General Bonta argued Tuesday. "We've protected funding that keeps our communities safe, feeds hungry families, and ensures our kids get the education they deserve. We've gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend constitutional rights — and won. We've protected our elections and stopped the militarization of our cities. We've defended our right to prioritize public safety over assisting with the President's inhumane immigration agenda."

For more information about the use of the state's legal defense fund, visit here.

In February of last year, the state established a $25 million legal defense fund at the California Department of Justice and state leaders now cite that investment for both the wave of litigation efforts as well as their success at clawing back taxpayer money for Californians.

"Today, we're announcing one of the best returns on investment in California history," Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas stated in a press release Tuesday. "We delivered $25 million to create a State Litigation Fund to defend Californians from unlawful actions coming out of Washington. And that $25 million has protected an estimated $207 billion for the people of California. That isn't politics. That's responsible government. That's protecting taxpayers. And nothing is more important to affordability than making sure Californians receive the services they've already paid for."

Speaker Rivas' Office noted some of the following sources of federal funds restored to California as examples of the success of the state's legal defense fund:

• Nearly $5 billion in child care and family assistance after the Trump Administration froze funding for California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota
• $8.7 billion in USDA nutrition funding, including school lunches and the SNAP program, that included new and allegedly discriminatory conditions for states to receive the grants
• $7.7 billion in federal transportation funding tied by the Trump Administration to enhanced immigration enforcement requirements
• $4.9 billion in education funding after the Trump Administration threatened to withhold federal education dollars from California on two separate occasions
• $1.1 billion in emergency preparedness funding through the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program

That last program was one Your News Channel reported had an outsized impact on the state and around the nation.

The BRIC program invested $5 billion into resiliency projects across the country and every dollar spent through the project is estimated to have saved between $6 and $13 in damages, clean up costs, and economic impact detailed a June 2025 letter from members of Congress.

The mitigation program was signed into law by President Trump as part of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018.

"The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program," argued the Department of Homeland Security when contacted by Your News Chanel about the terminated funds in June of 2025. "It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters. Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need."

"Democrats and Republicans in Congress recognized a simple fact: Preparing for disasters, instead of just reacting to them, saves money and lives," argued Attorney General Bonta in December of last year. "Yet in the name of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, President Trump and his lackeys have once again jeopardized public safety with their indiscriminate slashing of pre-disaster mitigation funding. We're taking them to court – not because we want to, but because we have to. As we continue to build a climate resilient California, we deserve a federal government that is a partner, not a roadblock in our efforts – and that's exactly what Congress intended."

Your News Channel has also covered the unilateral attempts to alter voting nationwide by the current administration that have encountered a notable legal defense by the Attorney General's Office.

In January of this year, a federal judge in Califonria dismissed the Trump Administration's demand for legally protected voter information finding the Justice Department's request was "unprecedented and illegal".

While federal law does require states to maintain accurate voter rolls, Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that decisions regarding, "the times, places, and manner of holding Elections" are delegated to Congress and managed by each state.

The Section does not mention any executive branch position, office, or department.

"[T]he right to vote was won through generations of sacrifices from marginalized communities the American political system devalued, but who were determined to make the promise of democracy real," shared Judge Carter in his January dismissal. "The pieces of legislation at issue in this litigation were not passed as an unrestricted means for the Executive to collect highly sensitive information about the American people. It is not for the Executive, or even this Court to authorize the use of civil rights legislation as a tool to forsake the privacy rights of millions of Americans. That power belongs solely to Congress."

California wasn't alone in facing legal demands for voter information.

On Monday of this week, U.S. District Judge Philip Brimmer found the demands for private voter information of Colorado voters was also illegal, making it the 20th state to reject such demands from the Trump Administration.

The White House created a website as part of its Congressional lobbying efforts for an election reform bill known as the SAVE America Act still working its way through Congress, a potential illegal use of taxpayer funds noted members of Congress in a letter to a federal watchdog in February of this year.

Regardless of those blocked or stalled policies, recent changes to mail-based voting implemented by the U.S. Postal Service in April and July of this year and have already impacted voting in the local area after Attorney General Bonta joined a coalition of other Attorneys General blocking the same changes attempted via two different Executive Orders.

"Once again, President Trump is trying to rewrite the rules of our elections. But he lacks the authority to do so," argued California Attorney General Rob Bonta in April's lawsuit challenging the unilateral orders changing mail-based voting nationwide. "The U.S. Constitution clearly gives States the primary authority over elections and gives zero authority to the President. This latest executive order is just another unlawful attempt to restrict voting, fueled by his fear of losing the upcoming midterm elections and based on wholly unfounded allegations of voter fraud."

In October of last year, the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder's Office warned that people living more than 50 miles from a postal processing hub should no longer assume their ballots will be postmarked the day they mail it.

Every single voter in San Luis Obispo County lives more than 50 miles from the U.S. Postal Service hub in Goleta and voters are now encouraged by the local elections supervisor as well as the U.S. Postal Service to mail their ballots at least one week before Election Day due to the recent changes.

"As part of the Postal Service's plan to achieve financial sustainability and service excellence, RTO [Regional Transportation Optimization plans implemented in July of 2025] is an effort to align transportation schedules between processing facilities and Post Office locations to improve operational efficiencies," explained Meiko Patton with the U.S. Postal Service's Sacramento office in response to Your News Channel's inquiries about the change to mail-based voting last year ahead of the state's primary election. "Prior to RTO, the Postal Service would send trucks to each Post Office location twice per day. The first trip would arrive in the morning from processing facilities, dropping off mail and packages specific to that office for delivery by mail carrier or distribution to PO Boxes. A second trip would arrive later in the day to pick up mail and packages which were collected during the day and bring them to the appropriate facility to be processed and dispatched into the postal network. RTO aims to improve the efficiency of our transportation network for Post Office locations serving ZIP Codes that are more than 50 miles from regional processing and distribution centers (RPDCs) through elimination of the multiple daily trips between processing facilities and Post Offices."

The U.S. Postal Service offered that it expected increases in voter requests for Certified Mail, Registered Mail, and Certificates of Mailing which provide proof of delivery for a fee, but how much revenue was expected to be raised from voters seeking these at-cost assurances about their ballots remains unanswered.

"The proposed rule USPS [U.S. Postal Service] issued on June 2 suffers from all the same legal deficiencies of the Executive Order [14399] and cannot be lawfully implemented," argued Attorney General Bonta in a lawsuit challenging the most recent attempts to federalize elections. "Critically, the proposed rule requires USPS to conduct a verification process to ensure that states comply with the regulation's mandates prior to USPS accepting ballots and mailing them to voters. For such a consequential regulation of American democracy, the regulation stunningly lacks any detailed information about the process USPS intends to use to verify each piece of outbound election mail. Nevertheless, this new 'verification process' empowers USPS to serve as the final arbiter of whether ballots meet the unilateral federal standards and are adequate to be delivered to voters – granting USPS the ultimate authority to decide which Americans can cast a ballot by mail. What the proposal also makes clear is that if a state chooses not to provide USPS with their voter rolls that state cannot mail ballots to their voters, effectively prohibiting vote-by-mail in those states. Even if a state does provide USPS its voter rolls, USPS can still disenfranchise individual voters if their ballots do not meet USPS's demanding requirements."

Those arguments about the U.S. Postal Service refusing to deliver or process ballots turned out to not be simply hyperbole.

According to Postmaster General David Steiner during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in late June of this year, the U.S. Postal Service would refuse to deliver ballots to states that did not comply with the proposed rule changes even as their legality was subject to litigation.

That June lawsuit challenging the Postal Service's plans also noted that the changes would require states to revise their respective election-related laws and procedures months before standard voting procedures for the 2026 General Election begin across the country.

While members of Congress have repeatedly voiced their opposition to the changes, it has largely been the federal court system halting the recent significant changes to the political system.

The Trump Administration filed an emergency appeal attempting to end the use of mailed ballots with the Supreme Court last month and the use of mail-based voting in the future now awaits its decision.

"California has long set the precedent of what it means to defend civil liberties on a state and federal level. We must put an end to federal overreach that puts the lives of people at risk, tramples our constitutional rights, and creates uncertainty across our communities," California Senate Pro Tempore Monique Limón shared Tuesday. "With the help and leadership of Attorney General Bonta, California has made progress in protecting the rights of every Californian, but we know there is more work to be done. California will not back down from defending our rights, values, and hard-won policies."