The cross-country game of evenness between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Republican governors of Florida and Texas is intensifying with each passing week.
The latest move by Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas is to send planes and buses full of Latin American migrants to cities in California.
Newsom, backed by Attorney General Rob Bonta, has threatened legal or even criminal action over what they described as virtual kidnappings.
“I know one was based on all the interviews and all the facts that are now in evidence,” Newsom said on NBC’s “Today” show after a plane brought immigrants to Sacramento. “Now we have to prove it.
“These are human beings being used as pawns for one man’s political advancement. That’s pretty sad and pathetic,” Newsom continued. “This is California — the fourth or fifth largest economy on planet Earth. We mean business. And so Ron DeSantis should know.
Bonta has launched lawsuits in Florida seeking details about the decision to send the migrants to California, tweeting: “State-sanctioned kidnapping is immoral.”
DeSantis and Abbott say those sent to California agreed to be transported and their actions illustrate the lack of action by the Biden administration on border security.
“Texas border towns are overrun and overrun due to Biden’s open border policies,” Abbott tweeted. “Texas is transporting migrants to self-declared sanctuary cities like LA to provide aid to our border communities. We will continue this effort until Biden secures the border.”
Predictably, the episode unleashed another round of vitriol.
After Newsom denounced DeSantis, a presidential hopeful, again during an interview with Fox News last week, DeSantis unloaded on Newsom during a law-signing ceremony last week, saying that he “has a serious fixation with the state of Florida. I think it’s weird that he would do that. What I would say to him is, you know what, stop walking the cat. Are you going to throw your hat in the ring and challenge Joe (Biden)?”
“Are you going to go in and do it, or sit on the sidelines and tweet?” DeSantis continued. “So why don’t you throw your hat in the ring, and then we’ll go ahead and talk about what’s going on.”
Taxpayers in Florida and Texas are funding the planes and buses that transport migrants to California, and a little-noticed order from a federal judge revealed that a gesture by Newsom is costing Californians more than half a million dollars.
After Texas enacted a law authorizing private lawsuits against anyone who aborts a fetus with a detectable heartbeat and made it virtually impossible to defend such a lawsuit, Newsom convinced the California Legislature to pass a copycat measure affecting the manufacturers of prohibited firearms.
At the time, Newsom acknowledged that it was a stunt designed to highlight the absurdity of the Texas law rather than a serious expression of policy.
The Texas law has survived legal challenges so far, but federal judge Roger Benitez quickly struck down the California law as unconstitutional because it would have forced defendants to pay litigation costs even if they won.
Newsom, who had been highly critical of Benitez over previous gun rights decisions, praised the judge’s rejection of the law he had championed, saying, “I want to thank Judge Benitez. We’ve always said that the law Texas anti-abortion law is outrageous. Judge Benitez just confirmed that it is also unconstitutional.”
Benitez later awarded gun rights groups that had challenged the California law nearly $557,000 in attorneys’ fees, money they can use to pursue many other challenges to California’s gun controls.
Taxpayers, not Newsom, are paying the price for his trick.
CalMatters is a public interest journalism company committed to explaining how the California State Capitol works and why questions. For more Dan Walters stories, go to comment.
