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Rob Bonta

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
472 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

That's what we follow.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

And we know that if we had something like occurred in Minnesota happening in California, I hope it doesn't.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

It was terrible.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

It was tragic.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

It was disgusting and unacceptable.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

We know what our rights are.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

Yeah.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

The Trump administration from, as you mentioned, from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 has used a common, I call it a move, an approach to try to unlawfully force states, mostly blue states, democratic states, let's be clear about it, to change their policies consistent with Trump.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

what the federal government wants.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

And they have used coercive funding approaches, basically threatened to withhold literally billions of dollars worth of funding, funding for transportation, funding to provide cybersecurity or fund counterterrorism, or to even support victims of crime, that they would pull that funding.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

That, by the way, the branch of government

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

the legislative branch, Congress, in Article 1 has already appropriated.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

They have the power of the purse, and they already said that funding should flow.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

But over there on the Article 2 executive branch, the president is saying, you're not getting the funding that you've already been appropriated if you don't engage in immigration enforcement the way we want you to.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

And trying to change the policies that we have in California and in other states, the so-called sanctuary policies.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

And there is an ability to encourage or incent certain behavior.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

The federal government can do that with its funding, but it can't coerce or compel when pressure turns into compulsion.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

then it violates the rules of federalism and violates the 10th Amendment and the spending clause.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

And there's a set of cases that the US Supreme Court decided where a modest incentive, for example, in South Dakota, there was a federal government said, you're not gonna get 5% of the state federal highway funding that we would normally give you unless you raise the drinking age to 21, because that'll make the highways more safe.

99% Invisible
Constitution Breakdown #7: California AG Rob Bonta

that was allowed.