POLITICS: Why LA’s ICE riots reveal decades of California poltical decay

Los Angeles has been overrun with lawless insanity, and that’s just the elected officials.

Mayor Karen Bass has spent a week blaming President Trump for disrupting her city, where she insists “everything was fine” until the federal government decided to enforce the law.

That’s consistent with how California’s public officials have dealt with crime in general.

In November, state voters were so fed up that they passed a get-tougher-on-crime initiative, Proposition 36, by a margin of 68% to 32% despite the furious opposition of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

His own plan to deal with crime is to close state prisons to save money.

Now, Newsom is suing the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard troops to protect federal law enforcement officers and federal buildings that were threatened by the violent protests.

Newsom says the president’s actions were both unnecessary and illegal. He asked a federal court in San Francisco to issue an emergency temporary restraining order

The court denied his request and gave the president’s lawyers the opportunity to respond.

Their 32-page filing begins by calling Newsom’s lawsuit “a crass political stunt.”

It documents that the protesters were throwing rocks, bottles, chunks of concrete, and exploding mortar-style fireworks at law-enforcement officers, as well as setting cars on fire, tossing Molotov Cocktails, shutting down the 101 Freeway, and ramming dumpsters into the walls of buildings.

Most members of the Los Angeles City Council issued a joint statement. “We condemn this in no uncertain terms,” they wrote.

But they were referring to the federal law enforcement operations, not the riots. “To every immigrant living in our city: we see you, we stand with you, and we will fight for you,” they added.

Some City Council members went further. Eunisses Hernandez told the crowd at a rally, “Community defense works” against law enforcement. She warned, “If they’re escalating their tactics, then so are we.” Hugo Soto-Martinez chided Los Angeles police chief Jim McDonnell for giving “safe passage to ICE.” Imelda Padilla asked McDonnell if the LAPD would “warn us so that we can warn our folks” when federal agents were approaching.

“You’re asking me to warn you about an enforcement action being taken by another agency before it happens?” the police chief asked.

“Yeah,” Padilla replied.

“Yeah, we can’t do that,” McDonnell said.

Mayor Bass has focused her efforts on repeating “stop the raids” at every public appearance, making the argument that enforcing the law in Los Angeles is what’s causing the violence, vandalism, and looting.

Why are Democratic elected officials in California twisting themselves into pretzels to oppose the enforcement of federal law?

In the November election, President Trump made significant gains with Latino voters, especially younger men. According to NBC News exit polls, Trump won the support of 45% of Hispanics, a 13-point increase from 2020 and a new record for a Republican presidential nominee. “This looks and sounds like a realignment,” wrote the analysts at Equis, a research and polling firm focused on Latino voters.

Democrats around the state have been relentlessly repeating anti-Trump messages, from denouncing the president for deploying the National Guard to accusing him of sending ICE to kidnap innocent people. Newsom gave a live-streamed speech Tuesday night that he called “Democracy at a Crossroads.” He accused the president of “indiscriminately targeting hardworking immigrant families, regardless of their roots or risk.” Adding extra drama, Newsom intoned, “Families separated. Friends disappearing.”

The enforcement actions were not indiscriminate, but apparently there’s no time for fact-checking when democracy is at a crossroads. The 2026 midterm elections are coming up fast. In 2024, there were nine congressional seats in California that were won with less than 54% of the vote, and six of those were won with less than 52%.

How important is the Latino vote in California to the Democrats’ hopes of winning back the majority in the House of Representatives? Democrats are pandering and fear-mongering as if it’s crucial, even in races that are not expected to be close.

For example, last Sunday, Rep. Maxine Waters was in downtown LA in front of a federal building and said of the National Guard troops protecting it, “They’re in our city with guns, and I’m sure they have orders to shoot to kill.”

She said Trump is going after “people who work every day, people who are paying taxes, who are raising their families, who are supporting education.”

Education funding is based on attendance. How would immigration enforcement affect it? In one study cited in an analysis for the legislature this year, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that about 15% of the 5.8 million students enrolled in K-12 public schools are either undocumented or have at least one undocumented parent. Would there be fewer jobs for the members of the powerful California Teachers Association?

Would immigration enforcement also mean fewer unionized health care jobs?

California has extended full-scope Medi-Cal (Medicaid) insurance to all low-income undocumented immigrant adults. More than 1.4 million have signed up.

It’s costing taxpayers in excess of $9 billion per year, an amount roughly equaled by the state’s budget deficit. Some Democrats want to raise taxes rather than reduce those benefits.

Riots, lawlessness, higher taxes. It sounds like a mad scientist’s formula for electing a Republican governor.

Susan Shelley is a columnist and editorial writer with the Southern California News Group, and VP of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. On X: @Susan_Shelley.