Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington, as President Donald Trump looks on (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
In a continuation of the legal battles between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump, the stage is set for oral arguments after a judge declined to force federal agents to show their faces, but took a different view about badge numbers and names.
On Feb. 9, Senior U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder ruled on two pieces of state legislation that Newsom signed into law in September, months before Trump pulled back on his threatened National Guard deployments amid protests over sweeping immigration enforcement carried out by often masked agents.
The first law, the “No Secret Police Act,” aimed to forbid federal agents from masking themselves or otherwise concealing their faces in most situations on the job, with misdemeanor criminal penalties for “willful and knowing” violations.
The second, the “No Vigilantes Act,” was enacted to “require a law enforcement officer operating in California that is not uniformed to visibly display identification that includes their agency and either a name or badge number to the public when performing their enforcement duties,” applying to “any” state or federal officer. This law carried a misdemeanor penalty.
The Trump administration has been suing over both since November, claiming that the laws violated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution as an impermissible state regulation of the federal government.
For Snyder, a Bill Clinton appointee, the government failed to show that federal agents generally having a visible face, names, and badge numbers “threaten[s] to interfere with or control federal law enforcement operations.”
“[T]he Court concludes that the United States is not likely to succeed on the merits of its complaint that the two challenged Acts directly regulate the federal government in violation of the intergovernmental immunity doctrine,” the judge stated.
But Snyder did find that the “No Secret Police Act” discriminated against the feds for treating them differently than similarly situated state officers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., gives remarks to a crowd at St. Paul First Baptist Church on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Laurens, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard).
“Accordingly, the Court finds that the United States is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the facial covering prohibition of the No Secret Police Act unlawfully discriminates against the federal government in violation of the intergovernmental immunity doctrine,” the judge said.
Finding irreparable harm, the judge granted an injunction blocking the state”s enforcement of its no-masking law.
Snyder did not go nearly as far as the administration hoped, however.
“The Court denies the United States’ motion for a preliminary injunction with respect to all other challenged provisions of the No Secret Police Act and the No Vigilantes Act,” she said.
The Trump administration went to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday with an emergency appeal, claiming that Snyder’s refusal to shut down the “No Vigilantes Act” was erroneous, as the law is “patently unconstitutional[.]”
The timing, the government emphasized, was of the essence.
“Although California agreed not to enforce these laws against the federal government while the preliminary injunction motion was pending, that stipulation expires on February 19 at noon,” the filing noted.
U.S. Circuit Judges Jacqueline Nguyen, a Barack Obama appointee, and Mark Bennett and Daniel Collins, both Trump appointees, responded swiftly on Thursday by granting an administrative halt on the enforcement of the second law “pending full review of the emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal.”
California has been ordered to respond by Monday at 5 p.m., and oral arguments have already been set for 10 a.m. on March 3.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi reacted by claiming to have “secured another key victory.”
“The 9th Circuit has now issued a FULL stay blocking California’s ban on masks for federal law enforcement agents,” Bondi said. “Law enforcement officers risk their lives for us, only to be doxxed by radical anti-police activists. Unacceptable. This crucial ruling protects our brave men and women in the field. We will not stop fighting bad laws like these in California and across the country.”
