The Brief

California’s Legislature on Monday approved a plan to fund potential lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration, an action that represents the state’s most direct rebuke to the White House to date.

The state Assembly approved a $50 million legal aid package on a party-line vote as part of a special session called by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Heated debate over the bills sparked an afternoon of rhetorical fireworks on the floor of the Assembly, where Democratic and Republican members exchanged broadsides over the state’s relationship with Trump.

“Let me be blunt — right now, Californians are being threatened by an out-of-control administration in Washington that doesn’t care about the Constitution and thinks there are no limits to its power,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D–Hollister) said. “Increasingly, our own residents are being threatened by actions taken by the Trump administration, and it is our duty to rise to the moment.”

The two bills now go to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is expected to quickly sign them into law. One bill would allocate up to $25 million to the state attorney general for court battles with the Trump administration. Another would set aside $25 million for legal nonprofits to defend residents facing detention or deportation as a result of federal actions.

In the weeks since Trump took office, the state has joined lawsuits to challenge the president’s executive actions on a birthright citizenship ban and his directive to freeze disbursements of nearly all federal funding.

However, Republicans have dismissed the legal aid bills as political posturing, arguing that the Legislature’s attention is better focused away from Washington.

“For this body to appropriate $50 million to sue and block and obfuscate the president of the United States, I think, is outrageous,” Assemblymember Bill Essayli (R–Corona) said. “We need to be focused on the state of California.”

Before debate began on the two bills, Rivas spoke to the entire body at the front of the Assembly, an atypical move that followed days of hand-wringing among Democrats over the special session legislation.

“Given the many executive orders that have been issued over the past two weeks, I can say with clarity that we do not trust President Donald Trump,” Rivas said.

On Jan. 31, Democrats scrapped a planned vote on the bills after a lengthy closed-door caucus meeting. Republicans had planned to force votes on amendments to clarify that the legal aid could not be used to defend immigrants convicted of a felony.

“We actually didn’t spend the weekend talking about this amendment at all,” Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D–Los Angeles) said. “We spent the weekend talking about the message. We were thinking about the message we wanted to send to the millions of undocumented families, including trafficking survivors, who are terrified their cries for asylum and refuge will go unanswered.”

On Monday, the authors of the bills, Sen. Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco) and Jesse Gabriel (D–Encino), published a letter to the chief clerk of the Assembly stating that none of the funding “is intended to be used for immigration-related services for individuals with serious or violent felony convictions.”

Republicans pushed to add the clarification into the language of the bill, arguing that the letter did not provide strong enough guardrails. Democrats voted down an amendment to do that, which would have likely triggered the need for another vote on the bill in the Senate.

“Without these amendments, state resources could still flow to organizations that obstruct federal efforts to bring these criminals to justice,” Assemblymember Leticia Castillo (R–Corona) said. “Protecting our communities and ensuring that criminals face the consequences of their actions should not be a partisan issue.”

The bills could be the last action taken during the special session that began in December, a move that allows bills signed into law to take effect more quickly. Last month, Newsom expanded the scope of the session to include response to the fires in Los Angeles and passed a $2.5 billion fire relief plan.

A federal judge has ordered Los Angeles to pay more than $1.8 million in attorneys’ fees and costs to the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights and other organizations that sued the city over what it deemed an inadequate response to the homelessness crisis.

The city is appealing the decision.

The details

L.A. Alliance is a group of business owners and residents who sued the city and county of Los Angeles in 2020 in an effort to push both governments to provide more shelter to unhoused people in the region.

The city of L.A. settled with the plaintiffs in 2022, and U.S. District Judge David O. Carter is overseeing the city’s progress in keeping up with the terms of that agreement. The judge found the city breached its agreement in multiple ways in a ruling last summer.

Specifically, the judge found that the city did not provide a plan for how it intends to create 12,915 shelter beds, as promised, by 2027. The court also found the city “flouted” its responsibilities by failing to provide accurate, comprehensive data when requested and did not provide evidence to support the numbers it was reporting, according to court documents.

In addition to $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees and $5,000 in costs to L.A. Alliance, Carter awarded about $200,000 in fees and $160 in costs to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and Los Angeles Community Action Network.

The organizations are considered “intervenors” in the suit, representing people experiencing homelessness on Skid Row. Their attorneys include those from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

Why it matters

In his order, released Tuesday, Carter compared the recent award to the millions of taxpayer dollars city officials agreed to pay an outside law firm representing L.A. in the settlement.

Carter wrote in the order that the attorneys' fees and costs to L.A. Alliance and others “is reasonable, especially in light of the approximately $5.9 million that the City’s outside counsel is charging.”

LAist’s housing and homelessness coverage was cited several times in the order.

“It has fallen to plaintiff, intervenors, and journalists to point out the deficiencies in the city’s reporting,” Carter wrote, referring to data the city is required to report to the court as part of the settlement.

“Plaintiff and intervenors must be compensated for this,” he said.

The city’s response 

Attorneys representing the city filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday.

L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment by phone or email.

Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Unhoused People's Justice Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, told LAist the intervenors participated in the case without compensation “because it's incredibly important given what is at stake in these proceedings that unhoused folks have a voice.”

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for L.A. Alliance, told LAist he’s thrilled the court is imposing accountability on the city, including sanctions for violating the settlement agreement. But Umhofer said he’s saddened that L.A. Alliance is going to have to keep fighting to hold the city to its promises.

“The obvious city strategy here is hire a big, good law firm to fight on absolutely every front in hopes that the plaintiffs, the intervenors or the court will ultimately give up trying to hold the city accountable,” he said.

What's next

The parties are scheduled to appear in federal court in downtown L.A. on Monday, when a hearing will resume to determine whether the judge will hold the city of Los Angeles in contempt of court.

Carter has said in documents that he’s concerned “the city has demonstrated a continuous pattern of delay” in meeting its obligations with court orders under the settlement and that the “delay continues to this day.”

Every January, the open-air downtown food fair reopens after its winter break and announces new additions to its carefully selected group of regular vendors.

This year’s new vendor class demonstrates the resilience of L.A.'s independent food scene, ranging from a Grammy-nominated producer's Persian-influenced pizza to Southern fried fish celebrating Black American culinary traditions, to an LAist 2025 Tournament of Cheeseburger heavyweight contender.

The reopening also marks the start of Smorgasburg LA's 10th anniversary year, and will feature 41 returning vendors, who've helped build the regular event into a fun, family-friendly opportunity to try new, often cutting-edge food you may not be familiar with.

Doors open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at DTLA’s The Row, with free entry and free parking for the first two hours.

A new year

General manager Zach Brooks said this is his favorite time of year. "We add the new vendors at the beginning of the new year, everyone's excited."

Vendors apply through Smorgasburg's website, and the team meets with every applicant to taste their food before acceptance. Brooks said it's not a vetting process like "Shark Tank" but rather a matter of seeing if it's a good fit. Competition remains fierce, with many more applicants than available spots.

"I think it's just a testament to L.A. and the resilience of people who love this business and have a passion for it, and are going to continue to persevere and start their businesses and want to be out there selling food," Brooks said.

Here are a few highlights:

Viral orange chicken sandwich 

Long Beach-based Terrible Burger becomes Smorgasburg's new permanent burger vendor after standout appearances at LAist's Tournament of Cheeseburgers and the market's rotating Smorgasburger Stand. The smashburger pop-up, run by husband-and-wife team Nicole and Ryan Ramirez, specializes in burgers that draw from pop culture and global influences. They've made waves with a Korean barbecue burger topped with bulgogi barbecue sauce and a viral orange chicken sandwich, previously available only at their Tuesday night residency at Long Beach's Midnight Oil, making its L.A. debut Sunday.

Terrible Burger's viral orange chicken sandwich makes its LA debut at Smorgasburg after being available only in Long Beach.

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Courtesy Terrible Burger

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"We have been big Smorgasburg fans for a really long time before we even started Terrible Burger. We would go to Smorgasburg on dates, just eat and hang out. And it was just always a little dream of, "oh, what if we ever sold food here?" Nicole Ramirez said.

Crispy fried snapper and thick-cut fries 

Orange County-based Hot Grease, run by Asha Starks, is among four vendors graduating from residencies to permanent status. The Southern fried fish pop-up celebrates Black American history through food that honors Starks' family heritage.

"Folks often forget that there are Black folks in Orange County. My family came to Orange County during the second wave of the Great Migration, and they settled in Santa Ana... my food is very cultural. And the story, I feel like, is just as important to highlight," Starks said.

Hot Grease's crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and "Ill Dill" tartar sauce.

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Courtesy Hot Grease

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Hot Grease serves crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and small-batch sauces like "Ill Dill" tartar. Honoring the fish fry's history as a site of mutual aid, Starks directs 3% of sales to the Potlikker Line, Hot Grease's reproductive justice mutual aid fund. For January, she's added fish and grits, black-eyed peas and collard greens.

Pizza with a Persian twist

Mamani Pizza brings studio-born energy to Smorgasburg LA with pies featuring Persian-inspired creativity.

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Courtesy Mamani Pizza

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Mamani Pizza, from the Grammy-nominated producer Farsi, part of the music production team Wallis Lane, started making Neapolitan-style pizzas at his West L.A. recording studio a year ago. What began as late-night pies for friends and artists became an underground hit. Most pizzas are traditional, but Farsi adds Persian touches like The Mamani, topped with ground wagyu koobideh, roasted Anaheim chilis, Persian herbs and pomegranate molasses.

Other new vendors

Banana Mama - Asian-inspired pudding
Barranco's Yogurt - Oaxacan fruit yogurt
Franzl's Franks - Austrian sausages
Melnificent Wingz - Gourmet chicken wings
Piruchi - Peruvian street food
RuRu's Golden Tea - Karak chai
Stick Talk - vegan corn dogs
SouuLA - Taiwanese breakfast concept
Unreal Poke - Hawaiian poke
Zindrew Dumpling Shop - Spicy wontons