Officials in overwhelmingly Democratic California have long used state power to torment businesses they don't like for a variety of ideological reasons. The Newsom administration is, by its own admission, trying to put the entire fossil-fuels industry out of business because of the governor's stated concerns about climate change.
A succession of Democratic attorney generals—Rob Bonta, Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris—used the state Department of Justice to go after gun manufacturers, insurance companies, and carmakers for transparently political reasons. Sure, they concoct legalistic justifications—such as claiming that pension funds' coal investments endanger the state's long-term fiscal health.
