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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
The concept of “two Americas”, one rich and one poor, one blue and one red, has been around for decades. But now, thanks to Donald Trump, there’s going to be fifty America.
As fast as the new president can sign the executive order, individual state governments are moving to challenge them in court. The upshot will be a more confusing environment for businesses — and a richer one for lawyers — as blue states look for ways to protect themselves from immigration crackdowns, lax environmental regulations, big tech monopolies and massive cuts in federal aid, from health care to emergency relief.
The lawsuits that have plagued Trump’s first term resumed last week as Massachusetts, New Jersey and California led a group of 18 states to file a challenge to the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. Four other states have filed similar cases. As Massachusetts Attorney-General Andrea Joy Campbell put it, “Birthright citizenship. . . A guarantee of equality born out of collective struggle against oppression. . . It is an exact settlement of our Constitution and has been recognized by the Supreme Court for more than a century. “
While one can only hope that today’s conservative courts would not approve a modern-day version of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that barred citizenship for enslaved people, the war would be costly and protracted. Ironically, a series of rulings by the Supreme Court through late 2023 actually make it easier for individuals, businesses, and aggressive states to take on the federal government.
For example, blue state governments are taking on many of the monopoly battles waged by the Biden administration. Minnesota’s progressive Attorney-General Keith Ellison has replaced former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan as the face of a battle against predatory ticket prices, algorithmic manipulation of the real estate market, grocery monopolies and rent-seeking pharmaceutical companies.
States would also be ground zero for climate law rollbacks, including Biden’s inflation-reduction legislation, which Trump has pushed to call the Green New Deal. While the president may try to rebrand some provisions benefiting red states as his own, he’s dropping subsidies for things like electric vehicles.
California is preparing for the coming climate battle. Between 2017 and 2021, the state sued the Trump administration 123 times, winning several victories against environmental regulations, though mostly on administrative grounds. This time around, the Trump administration has experience and better bureaucratic chops. California has already withdrawn several requests it had been granted under the Biden administration to enact its own higher pollution restrictions. And Trump is threatening to withhold federal disaster relief for LA unless the state changes its water management, blaming conservation efforts for the city’s inability to contain the fires.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested $25 million from the state budget to cover expected litigation costs in the fight against Trump. The state will also use the power of its own massive economy (the world’s fifth largest) to try and cut deals with big companies that meet its own clean energy standards, just as it did with major global automakers during the first Trump era.
This is an important point. Blue states are some of the largest and wealthiest consumers in the country. Even if the president doesn’t like it, they can create a strong demand signal for the rest of the country. For example, when the New York City Housing Authority decides to adopt a certain type of window, it may set the industry standard for years. When California or New York or Illinois or Massachusetts chooses a certain type of technology platform for public education systems, or a certain food safety rule, or a certain approach to labor and AI, it can tip the balance of what organizations do.
Of course, the economic pull of doing business in such places will also be balanced against the regulatory burdens they impose, especially in relation to red states that will be happy to adopt Trump’s deregulatory, laissez-faire agenda. A friend of mine recently spent a year and several thousand dollars in legal fees trying to safely fire a lazy and potentially litigious person he hired in California who worked remotely. His replacement is from business-friendly Tennessee.
.Historically, US states tend to band together best when fighting something, and this time is no different. Last November, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Colorado Governor Jared Polis created a new group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy to pool resources to counter Trump’s agenda. For example, Pritzker said he would not cooperate if Trump tried to use red state National Guard units to deport blue states. Will California send resources to help?
Here’s to hoping that such questions remain the stuff of dystopian films. The reality is that blue states, many of which have large deficits, will have to find ways to cope with less financial support from Washington. Conservatives have already called for a new kind of fiscal federalism, blaming overinflated state budgets for the national debt problem. No prizes for guessing where the first cut will be made.
