California must lawyer up to fight the federal rollback

In the Special Session that began last week and will continue into January, the California Legislature must do more than simply prepare to sue the federal government. The Legislature should also adopt a comprehensive strategy that bolsters key elements of our state's legal infrastructure to protect civil rights, reproductive freedom, climate action, and immigrant families.

California must prepare to step into the breach when the federal government inevitably abdicates its responsibilities; address instances where anti-immigrant rhetoric emboldens illegal activity; and support legal assistance for low-income Californians who will bear the brunt of new federal policies. Looking closely at the legal assistance needed in just one area--housing and homelessness--illustrates this approach. 

Project 2025 calls for a "wholesale overhaul" of the Department of Housing and Urban Development by "devolving many HUD functions to states and localities with any remaining federal functions consolidated to other federal agencies." These actions would eliminate HUD altogether.

Even if the new administration does not go this far, we know that they have little interest in enforcing housing discrimination laws. Last time around, they left hundreds of housing positions unfilled, repealed regulations implementing affirmatively furthering fair housing, and refused to enforce housing discrimination standards. These actions will shift the burden of enforcing housing discrimination laws to California.

In many instances, California's civil rights laws provide broader protection than federal laws. But California's laws are meaningless without legal representation to enforce them. The California Civil Rights Department, which has primary responsibility for enforcing California's fair housing laws, is woefully understaffed, with just a handful of lawyers enforcing housing discrimination laws across the entire state.

In early October, Inner City Law Center, where I work, filed 112 complaints with this Department, documenting housing discrimination by 203 landlords and realtors. Each complaint included a text message that documented a clear violation of California's law prohibiting discrimination against Housing Choice Voucher holders. So far, the Department has only had the resources to move forward with eight of these 112 complaints.

This resource shortfall will worsen as the federal government steps away from addressing the housing discrimination that contributes to homelessness. The Legislature should fund additional lawyers and mediators at the Department to ensure our housing discrimination laws are enforced.

We will also need increased enforcement of tenant protections. In 2016, Inner City Law Center saw an immediate uptick in tenant harassment as landlords, emboldened by anti-immigrant rhetoric, threatened to report tenants to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement when they complained about slum conditions or refused to pay illegal rent increases. The Legislature should enact a statewide version of the recently passed Los Angeles City and County anti-harassment ordinances that protect tenants from being bullied out of their homes by illegal threats.

The new administration has indicated its intent to replace evidence-based Housing First policies that place housing at the center of what is needed to end homelessness with more punitive approaches towards homelessness. This shift will be costly, unproductive, and inhumane.

Many tenants and people living on our streets will turn to underfunded legal aid organizations for assistance with increased landlord harassment and other legal matters because of more punitive policies. The Legislature should increase funding for these organizations that will inevitably be at the forefront of providing legal representation to vulnerable Californians dealing with the fallout from federal policy changes.

The State of California filed over 120 lawsuits last time Trump was in office. With the new administration's likely focus on increasing presidential power, scaling back regulations, and dismantling federal agencies, there will be no shortage of actions to litigate. However, California is likely to find litigation more challenging this time around. Three Supreme Court appointments and over 200 other judicial appointments have moved the federal courts significantly to the right. Republican majorities in both houses of Congress will also complicate many of the previous legal pathways to court challenges.

This more difficult legal landscape makes the additional resources detailed above especially important. The Legislature must prepare the state to weather the coming storm as effectively and humanely as possible. This requires fortifying California's legal infrastructure in more creative ways than just increasing funding for federal litigation by the California Department of Justice.