Newsom seeks to regain control of rest of National Guard

By Dave Mason
The Center Square

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking another courtroom victory against President Donald Trump after a federal judge Tuesday ruled in Newsom’s favor over the National Guard.

As reported earlier by The Center Square, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled Tuesday morning that Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by deploying the California National Guard and Marines for law enforcement in June after protests and riots in Los Angeles. The demonstrations occurred in response to immigration raids and arrests.

The San Francisco judge ruled Trump couldn’t use the military to enforce laws in California, but Newsom went a step further. The Democratic governor announced Tuesday afternoon that he filed a preliminary injunction to stop the deployment of the remaining 300 National Guard members through the Nov. 4 general election.

Newsom filed a preliminary injunction Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the same court that ruled in the governor’s favor on the same day. As with the earlier case, the defendants are Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense. The injunction, which was submitted by Attorney General Rob Bonta and others on his staff, seeks to overturn the defendants’ Aug. 5 order federalizing and deploying 300 California National Guard members for 90 days and turn the entire California National Guard back to Newsom’s control.

The injunction said allowing the troops to remain puts California under military occupation, right through a statewide election on congressional redistricting in the Golden State. The Democratic supermajorities in the state Assembly and Senate passed a measure, signed by Newsom, to put Proposition 50 on the Nov. 4 election.

If passed, the proposition could cost Republicans five seats in the U.S. House, according to GOP legislative leaders who talked to The Center Square. Newsom and other Democrats have said the measure is necessary to counter mid-decade redistricting in Texas to give Trump and his fellow Republicans five more seats in the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm election.

The motion for a preliminary injunction said Trump, Hegseth and the Department of Defense can’t show there was an invasion, rebellion or an inability to enforce federal law on Aug. 5 anywhere in California.

“The timing of Trump’s extension of the National Guard soldiers isn’t coincidental – he’s holding onto soldiers through Election Day,” Newsom said in a statement. “There was never a need, and there is not a need now for soldiers to be deployed against their communities. The federal government hasn’t even tried to justify keeping the military in Los Angeles because they can’t. The reality is this – they want to continue their intimidation tactics to scare Californians into submission.”