Or maybe Tom Steyer wants to run on the “States Rights” ticket when it comes to defying federal law. That has a long and interesting history in American politics, too. Just ask Orval Faubus and George Wallace, and see how well it worked out for them.
Either way, Steyer picked an odd moment to promise insurrection to California voters. Eric Swalwell’s catastrophic implosion from Democrat frontrunner to Law & Order: SVU villain arguably benefits Steyer most. All the billionaire climatista needed to do was not be bat-guano crazy to distinguish himself from both Swalwell and Katie Porter, the other presumed Democrat frontrunner after Swalwell’s exit from California’s gubernatorial primary.
Instead, Steyer chooses to go the Full Faubus, and … you never go the Full Faubus:
NEW: CA gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer (D) releases an immigration platform that is radically left of Gov. Newsom. It includes:
– Abolish ICE
– Put ICE agents in jail & “treat them like the mob”.
– Bring those “kidnapped & detained by ICE back home.”
– Give CA AG power to… https://t.co/XqM8eK7Hhf— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 14, 2026
– Give CA AG power to imprison ICE agents & their leadership.
– Taxpayer funded legal representation & support for illegal aliens.
– Ignore a SCOTUS ruling that allows ICE to utilize to use race, language, job, and location to contribute to “reasonable suspicion” for immigration arrests, and instead, “California should take matters into our own hands and extend legal protections to its residents, despite the federal governments failure.”
“This is about our right as a state to protect our residents,” Steyer says.
Ignore the Supreme Court? Reject federal authority? That sounds very much like a declaration of insurrection, or at least a declaration of that intent. But is that what Steyer actually said?
Er … yes, as a matter of fact. Steyer actually laid all of this out in an X essay, pretty much how Melugin summarized his platform. Steyer’s five planks in his insurrection platform are all designed to protect not citizens, but “residents” in California. In other words, Steyer plans to ignore the courts and the law to declare an insurrection on behalf of illegal aliens in the Golden State.
Don’t believe me? Here are Steyer’s five planks:
As Governor, I will do the following five things. Each point builds on one another to create a comprehensive strategy that gives the State of California the power it needs to take on ICE and win.
First, I will go after ICE’s modus operandi: using racial discrimination to detain, arrest, attack, and brutalize Americans. I will pass aggressive legislation that builds on current California statutes and outlaws any law enforcement agency from profiling anyone based on their race, ethnicity, language, occupation, or location. We are done letting federal badges serve as a shield for abuse in our state.
Second, I will give the state Attorney General the authority to hold ICE’s leadership accountable for violence. My plan will pursue supervisory liability. This body of law empowers the California justice system to criminally prosecute and imprison not just the ICE agents who are committing these crimes, but the leadership directing them to do so.
Third, I will appoint and fund a special investigative unit and work with the Attorney General who is specifically tasked with enforcing these California laws, including laws related to the conditions at detention facilities. This investigative unit will collect the evidence the Attorney General can use to prosecute offenders and their leadership.
Fourth, I will bring those detained and kidnapped by ICE back home by creating a much larger and stronger immigration legal defense infrastructure in our state – funding for more attorneys, investigators, and accredited representatives, as well as legal aid and law school programs—to assist and help those who have been imprisoned without due process.
Getting the thousands of unlawfully detained immigrant men, women, and children the legal representation they need is one of the most direct ways to defend them from deportation. Data show that 62 percent of immigrants without a lawyer are ordered deported, compared to 27 percent of those who have legal assistance.
Backed by expanded protections against racial profiling, legal representation empowers detained individuals to report ICE’s crimes to the special investigator and California’s Attorney General, and take the agents to court.
And Fifth, I will launch a massive statewide “Know Your Rights” public education and public awareness campaign. Every Californian, regardless of their immigration status, should know their constitutional and legal rights if you are stopped, detained, or questioned by ICE agents, if you are assembled to protest against ICE, if you are filming ICE agent activities, or if you witness unlawful and illegal actions perpetrated by ICE agents.
The first two planks promise to defy the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and the jurisdiction of federal courts in general. That is an outright insurrection against the constitutional authority of the United States. Even Faubus and Wallace eventually had to concede to federal authority in the end as presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy took control of National Guard units to enforce desegregation laws. (Both Faubus and Wallace attempted to defy the Supreme Court too, refusing to comply with Brown v Board of Education.) The third plank is less explicitly insurrectionist, but Steyer’s intent is clearly to push the state Attorney General to also defy federal authority.
Plank Four is almost absurd in its Faubusian fantasy. States have no authority to force the release of illegal aliens detained by federal agencies. Steyer uses the term “kidnapped” as a justification to attack ICE and CBP, but illegal aliens with administrative warrants for expulsion are being lawfully detained under federal statute. If Steyer wants to change those statutes, he should run for Congress, not governor. And there’s an opening available right now in California’s 15th congressional district, in fact, so Steyer has an opportunity to run for the office that actually controls these questions.
If Steyer takes office and attempts this, it would be the clearest example of state insurrection since Faubus and Wallace, and arguably Fort Sumter if Steyer actually orders arrests of federal agents. He’s escalating matters even farther than Larry Krasner did in Philadelphia last month, which turned out to be nothing but Krasner being an impotent blowhard as the county DA. What I wrote at the time applies in spades to California and Steyer:
Krasner either forgets about or entirely ignores the Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution. Local DAs and state Attorneys General do not have jurisdiction over federal officers performing statutory duties. Only the Department of Justice can prosecute such cases. If Krasner attempted what he threatens here, the defendants and the DoJ would immediately file motions to remove such cases to federal court under the DoJ’s jurisdiction, either for prosecution there or for dismissal. (As an aside: People may recall that Trump and Mark Meadows attempted this in Georgia during the Fani Willis RICO debacle, but the court ruled that they were acting as candidates rather than federal officers and ruled against removal.)
If Krasner doesn’t know this, he should be disbarred for complete incompetence. If Krasner does know this, he should be disbarred for threatening to abuse his office for blatantly political demagoguery.
And if Krasner actually attempts this, he might get disbarred for committing a felony. Any attempt to arrest an ICE agent while performing his duties by someone without authority or jurisdiction over them would be obstruction of federal law enforcement, which can be charged at a felony level. LaMonica McIver found that out the hard way last year, after the House Democrat assaulted multiple immigration officers at a detention center in Newark when they attempted to arrest Mayor Ras Baraka for forcing entry into the facility. As I pointed out at the time, 18 USC 111 doesn’t even require physical contact to prosecute this circumstance as a felony, but grabbing an agent would almost certainly lead the DoJ to escalate that charge to felony level for Krasner and anyone else conspiring to obstruct federal law enforcement operations. …
If Krasner put an agent in a jail cell, the DoJ could add false imprisonment, too. Assault and obstruction would be slam-dunks.
Krasner threatened this as a publicity stunt. Steyer is promising this insurrectionist lunacy as a campaign platform. Faubus and Wallace did that, too. If Steyer wins the office and tries this, he will find out soon enough that Donald Trump has less patience than Eisenhower and Kennedy did, especially if Steyer orders California law enforcement to obstruct federal law enforcement. Trump would likely relish the opportunity to prosecute a Democrat governor for insurrection. Let’s see if California voters are stupid enough to fall for Steyer’s demagoguery.
Closing thought from our colleagues at Twitchy: Second look at Greasy Gavin? Or even Batgirl?
the craziest thing about gavin newsom has always been that he is the least crazy democrat available to govern california https://t.co/Xq7bfitH3e
— Mike Solana (@micsolana) April 14, 2026
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