California Gov. Gavin Newsom has intervened in two “fee-shifting” lawsuits challenging the state’s new gun control law regulating legal challenges to Golden State gun laws. f
The announcement came following notice that Attorney General Rob Bonta “is not in a position to defend the merits of a provision that is indistinguishable in relevant part from a provision that he has opined is unconstitutional,” according to a news release from the Second Amendment Foundation.
Newsom has hired a private law firm to intervene in two legal actions, Miller v. Bonta and South Bay Rod & Gun Club, Inc., v. Bonta. The defendants’ supplemental brief may be read here. Bonta is a defendant in both actions, and his office is responsible for defending state laws.
Miller v. Bonta is a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., and several other plaintiffs. Bonta is California attorney general. South Bay Rod & Gun Club, Inc. v. Bonta is a case brought by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, California Rifle & Pistol Association and several other plaintiffs. Both cases are in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
However, this is an unusual case. As acknowledged in the supplemental brief, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, the statute challenged in both lawsuits is SB 1327 which “was a response to a recently enacted and roundly criticized Texas statute (SB 8)” dealing with abortion. In retaliation, California lawmakers adopted SB1327, which plaintiffs in both cases contend were designed “to thwart legitimate judicial review” of state gun control laws.
Bonta has contended the Texas statute is unconstitutional, but the challenged California statute is essentially a carbon copy, shifting the focus from abortion to guns.
“Bonta is in something of an embarrassing bind,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb in a news release. “He can’t defend a law that is nearly a mirror image of a Texas statute he has already declared is unconstitutional.”
“It’s going to be interesting to see how the governor’s attorney will defend a law California’s attorney general has essentially declared bogus by its similarity to another state’s law he stated is unconstitutional,” Gottlieb added.
In his supplemental brief to the court, Bonta said “defendants do not oppose the Governor’s motion to intervene.”
In an earlier statement, when SAF announced its motion for a preliminary injunction in Miller v. Bonta, Gottlieb said, “The statute in question is a childish effort to punish Golden State gun owners for the adoption of a law in Texas that California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom don’t like.
“We’re not interested in their snit with Texas lawmakers,” he continued, “and California’s millions of law-abiding gun owners should not be held captive nor effectively silenced in their efforts to challenge gun control laws in California, which have nothing to do with California’s dispute with Texas.”
In their lawsuit, SAF and its partners asserted the law violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. It also says the new California law enables government defendants to recover fees if a firearms plaintiff loses on any claim in the case, while the plaintiff can only avoid liability for fees if it prevails on every claim in the case. Therefore, firearms plaintiffs cannot be “prevailing parties” under Section 1021.11, meaning they are never entitled to recover fees and costs, according to a SAF release.
