{"id":203762,"date":"2026-03-04T11:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/203762\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T11:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:15:07","slug":"how-a-last-minute-deal-doomed-californias-ban-on-masked-ice-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/203762\/","title":{"rendered":"How a last-minute deal doomed California’s ban on masked ICE agents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The judge was perplexed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy were state law enforcement officers excluded?\u201d U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder wanted to know. <\/p>\n

The judge pressed California Deputy Atty. Gen. Cameron Bell to explain the thinking behind a pair of trailblazing new laws meant to unmask the federal immigration agents patrolling Golden State streets and compel them to identify themselves. <\/p>\n

One of the laws required all law enforcement operating in the state to visibly display identification while on duty, with narrow exclusions for plainclothes, undercover and SWAT details. It applied to everyone else, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.<\/p>\n

But the other law, a ban on masks worn by on-duty law enforcement officers, applied only to local cops and federal agents, with a broad exemption for the California Highway Patrol and other state peace officers.<\/p>\n

Snyder wanted to know: Why were the laws different?<\/p>\n

She never got an answer. Bell said she couldn\u2019t comment on the actions of the Legislature. <\/p>\n

\"Scott <\/p>\n

State Sen. Scott Wiener attends the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco in February.<\/p>\n

(Jeff Chiu \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

In the halls of the statehouse last year, Sen. Scott Wiener\u2019s (D-San Francisco) No Secret Police Act and Sen. Sasha Ren\u00e9e P\u00e9rez\u2019s (D-Alhambra) No Vigilantes Act were referred to as \u201clegislative twins,\u201d a nod to their shared gestation and conjoined legal fate. If passed, both would immediately be challenged by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely what happened. Both measures became law \u2014 but only the ID law survived its first court battle, sending state legislators back to the drawing board on the mask ban. <\/p>\n

Polls show unmasking ICE is overwhelmingly popular with voters, and both Wiener and Gov. Gavin Newsom took credit for getting the bill passed.<\/p>\n

But behind the scenes, according to nearly two dozen sources familiar with the legislative process who spoke to The Times, a fight had been brewing between the two Democrats. <\/p>\n

Days before the amendment deadline last summer, Newsom\u2019s office proposed changes to Wiener\u2019s mask ban that, according to legal experts and opponents, would have exempted most ICE<\/a> and Customs and Border Protection operations from the bill. The governor\u2019s team denies that was the intent of their proposal. The resulting compromise exempted state peace officers from the law instead. <\/p>\n

Snyder struck it down on Feb. 9, writing that she was \u201cconstrained\u201d to do so because the exemption of state police \u201cunlawfully discriminates against federal officers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interviews with more than 20 lawmakers, policy advisors, law enforcement and legal experts show how the Labor Day weekend deal came together, ensuring both Wiener and the governor a political victory that in short order became a court triumph for the president. <\/p>\n

There are now more than a dozen similar bills winding through statehouses from Olympia, Wash., to Albany, N.Y., as legislators try to rein in a practice the majority of Americans see as dangerous and corrosive. In Sacramento, similar efforts are underway to pass a narrower version of the law, and both Newsom and Wiener have said they were proud to make California the first state to pass an ICE mask ban.<\/p>\n

Both sides said the legislative process is messy, and that eleventh-hour amendment fights are inevitable in a statehouse where more than 900 bills were passed and close to 800 signed into law last year. <\/p>\n

Yet neither the governor\u2019s office nor the legislator\u2019s team has offered clear answers for why both accepted a last-minute change on a nationally watched bill that each was informed could kneecap the law\u2019s constitutional standing in court. <\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing the carve-out, I was immediately really surprised,\u201d said Bridget Lavender, staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative, the nation\u2019s leading expert on the myriad legal efforts to unmask ICE across the U.S. \u201cThat\u2019s ultimately what doomed it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Others were more blunt. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw the final bill I said, \u2018What happened here?\u2019\u201d said one prominent constitutional scholar, who asked not to be identified because they were advising several other state legislatures on similar mask ban efforts. \u201cI can\u2019t believe this happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

All eyes were really on California. <\/p>\n

\u2014 Bridget Lavender, staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative<\/p>\n

Legally, the mask ban was always going to be a cat fight. Law enforcement groups loathed it. Constitutional scholars were wary. The Justice Department contends both the mask ban and the ID law illegally interfere with the operation of the federal government, a violation of the Constitution\u2019s supremacy clause, while California likens them to highway speed limits, which apply to everyone equally. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a very strong argument that the law is constitutional so long as it applies to all law enforcement,\u201d said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berekely Law School and an early champion of the original No Secret Police Act, known in Sacramento as SB 627. <\/p>\n

Others saw it differently. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very complicated question as to whether states can enact law enforcement policies that bind the federal government,\u201d said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. \u201cThe answer [here] is probably not. I regret that\u2019s the law, but I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone agreed, the Golden State would set the precedent. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll eyes were really on California,\u201d Lavender said. <\/p>\n

Judge Snyder agreed with the state, upholding the ID law. Judges for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sharply questioned both the federal government and California in a hearing Tuesday, repeatedly emphasizing the lack of clear precedent and constitutional uncertainty of the law. <\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia has done something that we just haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d said Judge Jacqueline Nguyen. <\/p>\n

Most scholars believe it will ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court. <\/p>\n

The mask ban would be on the same track now, if not for the state police exemption. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we really had to thread that needle very carefully,\u201d said state Sen. Patricia Fahy of New York, whose mask ban bill could soon be fast-tracked in Albany. \u201cYou had to put all law enforcement in it. I say that as a non-lawyer, but I knew that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wiener knew it too. A Harvard-trained lawyer and a former deputy city attorney for San Francisco, he\u2019d rebuffed early requests to exempt state and local officers from the bill and circulated Chemerinsky\u2019s July 23 op-ed in the Sacramento Bee <\/a>explaining the necessity of a universal ban, including to the governor\u2019s team. <\/p>\n

The state\u2019s powerful law enforcement unions were livid. They railed against the bill in public and in the Legislature, testifying relentlessly about the harm that would flow to them from a ban \u2014 including being required to enforce it against armed federal agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing you want is two people with firearms on their hips getting into an argument,\u201d said Marshall McClain, a regional director in the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, among the state\u2019s richest and most powerful lobbying groups. <\/p>\n

Law enforcement objections shaped the changes the governor\u2019s legislative office sought just days before the Sept. 5 amendment deadline, according to a stakeholder involved in those discussions. <\/p>\n

\"California <\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference in Los Angeles in 2024.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The most controversial ask from Newsom\u2019s team was an exemption for all types of officers engaged in \u201cwarrant and arrest related operations\u201d \u2014 precisely the type of enforcement Alex Pretti was filming when masked CBP agents tackled him to the ground and shot him to death in Minneapolis last month.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s office also sought an exemption for all officers engaged in \u201ccrowd management, intervention, and control\u201d \u2014 the work ICE agent Jonathan Ross was doing when he shot and killed Renee Good less than three weeks earlier. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were working to ensure state officer safety and operational effectiveness, not exempt ICE,\u201d said Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom\u2019s chief deputy director of communications. <\/p>\n

Yet California Deputy Solicitor Gen. Mica Moore told the 9th Circuit on Tuesday that the state\u2019s ID law only applies to officers engaged in \u201carrest or detention operations or … crowd control\u201d \u2014 activities she characterized as central to its purpose. <\/p>\n

Rather than swallow bad terms or risk Newsom\u2019s veto, Wiener countered with the state police carve-out \u2014 a move constitutional experts advised him would leave the law at least some chance of survival. <\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s legislative team quickly accepted, leaving Bell and the attorney general\u2019s office on the hook to defend the exemption. <\/p>\n

Boosters argue that even with its fatal flaw, California\u2019s law advanced such bans nationally in a pivotal moment last September.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe politics have changed dramatically,\u201d said Hector Villagra, vice president of policy advocacy for MALDEF, one of the mask ban\u2019s sponsors. \u201c[Today] people realize this is not normal in a democracy like ours.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The judge was perplexed. \u201cWhy were state law enforcement officers excluded?\u201d U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder wanted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3653,94399,7,9,8,4420,943,16047,721,734,38551,3290,346,6843,225,427,9552],"class_list":["post-203762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-bill","tag-broad-exemption","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-federal-officer","tag-governor","tag-judge","tag-law","tag-law-enforcement","tag-mask-ban","tag-newsom","tag-office","tag-operation","tag-state","tag-team","tag-wiener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}