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We’ve just filed our Trial Brief, which is a 20-page outline of the case we plan to present. Gavin Newsom also filed his. The trial will take place next Wednesday, 9 AM, at the Sutter County Courthouse.

I’ve posted the full Trial Brief here, along with our other filings. This brief and all prior briefs were written and argued by me and Assemblyman Gallagher alone, representing ourselves in pro per.

While we could have hired outside lawyers, we’ve felt compelled to personally stand up for our branch of government, and more importantly, for the people of California we were elected to represent.

That’s because this case is not about one particular law, but the rule of law – not about rectifying a single violation of the Constitution but redeeming the whole document.

While the idea of a lawyer-legislator has rich veins in American history, it’s taken on a new meaning in this most lawless of times. Yet Gavin Newsom seems to think this all merits scorn.

In his own Trial Brief (which his attorneys wrote and he approved), he offers this potshot: “Though Plaintiffs claim to be guardians of the Legislature’s authority, notably, unlike in Michigan, the California Legislature as a body has not joined Plaintiffs’ lawsuit.”

He’s got a point: California’s Legislature has been much more useless than the one in Michigan or pretty much anywhere. Its leaders, far from reining in Newsom’s abuse of power, have taken most of the year off.

So it’s fallen on two members of the “super-duper” minority to stand up and do something about it.

His snide remarks aside, Newsom’s Trial Brief employs the same old scare tactics, claiming that that if we win his powers will be rendered “toothless” as the “earthquake, fire, or pandemic is raging.”

Our response is simple: past Governors have handled such events without declaring themselves autocrats, collapsing our republican form of government, and turning our communities upside down.

And our legal argument is just as simple: Either (a) Gavin Newsom has continually violated the Emergency Services Act or (b) the whole Act is unconstitutional. There is no option (c).

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