Did Gavin Newsom just do something useful?

Published April 16, 2025 4:18pm ET



Democrats like Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) may have called the Supreme Court “evil” after it held that the Clean Air Act didn’t empower the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal plants out of existence, but now Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is citing that very precedent in his new suit challenging President Donald Trump’s tariff regime.

“Where the economic and political significance is as staggering, and the power asserted is so novel and transformative as it is with the unprecedented tariffs that President [Donald] Trump has imposed here,” Newsom’s complaint reads, “the President must have ‘clear congressional authorization’ to justify his executive actions.”

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