How much could the DOJ secure in Dec. special session to fight Trump’s agenda in the courts?

During the first months of Donald Trump’s first term in 2017, the California Department of Justice devoted more than 13,000 hours of bureaucrats’ time preparing the state for legal battles against the new president.

“California has staked out a position as a leader on environmental protection, expansion of access to quality and affordable health care, and immigrant rights,” read a DOJ budget change request submitted to the Legislature in May 2017. “These hard fought forward-leaning changes are currently under threat from a hostile Federal government.”

To prepare, the DOJ asked for a $6.5 million budget increase and dozens of additional employees. State leaders granted the request. For the rest of Trump’s term, the state’s AG office received the annual money to push back against the former president.

Now that Trump is back in the White House the state is again looking to fund its legal division for anticipated court battles. Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a special session to increase the DOJ’s legal resources, which will likely include more funding.

Just how much is unclear. Neither the DOJ, nor the Governor’s Office, provided a specific amount the department was seeking to support the California attorney general.

Former Attorney General Xavier Becerra took office in January 2017. He replaced now-Vice President Kamala Harris after she was elected to the Senate. He served until the end of Trump’s term.

“In terms of the incoming Trump Administration, our office will work in conjunction with the Governor and the Legislature to ensure we have the resources we need to meet the demands of the moment and robustly defend California’s people, progress, and values,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday.

The $6.5 million allocated accounts for a fraction of the department’s budget. The DOJ’s Legal Services Division, which accounts for more than half of the department’s total expenses, has a budget of more than $700 million this year.

The DOJ initially asked for a two-year budget increase in the 2017-18 fiscal year. Despite Trump leaving office in 2021 that funding became a fixed part of the department’s budget until fiscal year 2023-24, when it was nearly cut in half, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. This year, the funding initially allocated to fight the Trump administration was reduced to $2.5 million, the LAO said.

In the budget change request, the legal department said it spent hundreds of hours investigating and preparing to challenge several of Trump’s early actions including a travel ban imposed against majority-Muslim countries and efforts to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

The AG’s office also warned in the 2017 budget change request that additional resources would be needed to ramp up law enforcement oversight and protections for students’ civil rights in light of comments made by Trump appointees who said that the federal government would pull back on those efforts.