The beginning of President Donald Trump’s second time period has been a bonanza for the attorneys basic of blue states. Because the president has launched his blizzard of government orders and axed federal funding and applications on which states rely, these attorneys basic have filed fits designed to place the brakes on what Trump is making an attempt to perform.
Because the Washington Publish reported on Feb. 22, 2025, “In the past month alone, multistate coalitions have sued the Trump administration seven times.”
Right here’s one instance: In late January, 22 states and the District of Columbia requested a federal district courtroom in Rhode Island for a brief restraining order to cease the Workplace of Administration and Funds from halting federal grants and monetary help that might go to residents, organizations or governmental entities of their jurisdictions.
In early February, the attorneys basic of Minnesota, Oregon and Washington sought and have been granted an order to cease the Trump administration from implementing an government order that, in response to Lambda Authorized, an LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group, “targets transgender and gender-diverse youth.”
Nearly every week later, 14 attorneys basic went to courtroom to stop Elon Musk “from issuing orders to any person in the Executive Branch outside of DOGE and otherwise engaging in the actions of an officer of the United States.”
New York Lawyer Basic Letitia James and Connecticut Lawyer Basic William Tong each sued to cease DOGE from acquiring People’ private knowledge.
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As a scholar of legislation and politics, I see the attorneys basic actions towards the Trump administration as the newest chapter of an ongoing story courting to the nineteenth century wherein state officers push again towards the nationwide authorities, respiratory life into this nation’s federal system. That system, designed by the framers to guard liberty and as a guard towards tyranny, gave powers to each federal and state governments.
Hybrid function of state attorneys basic
The work of attorneys basic within the varied states includes a mixture of legislation and politics. Because the Nationwide Affiliation of Attorneys Basic describes their function, attorneys basic are “chief legal officers” and serve “as counselor to state government agencies and legislatures, and as a representative of the public interest.”
Attorneys basic use the legislation to advance their political objectives. Although their exact duties range from state to state, state attorneys basic don’t fully eschew politics.
In 43 states, they’re elected officers who run for workplace as partisans. These candidates supply applications and promise to take actions which can be usually in step with the platforms of the events that nominate them. As lawyer Marissa Smith wrote within the Cornell Regulation Evaluation, “The position of State AG has long been said to stand for ‘Aspiring Governor’ rather than Attorney General.”
Smith argues that state attorneys basic “have leaned into our nation’s divisive partisanship – often as an integral part of a quest for higher office – and used their traditional roles and powers to grandstand and showcase their party loyalty on a national stage.”
When, as within the current spate of fits, state attorneys basic pursue the federal authorities or one other goal on the nationwide stage, there’s actually no means for them to lose, politically talking. As journalist Alan Greenblatt writes, “It’s all upside. If a lawsuit succeeds, you achieve a policy goal. If it fails, you’ve still made a name for yourself and often delayed a policy for months and even years,” particularly when that coverage is unpopular.
Suing the federal authorities
There’s nothing new about what state attorneys basic are actually doing. At one time or one other, lawsuits towards the federal authorities have come from each Democratic and Republican attorneys basic.
For instance, in the course of the so-called Gilded Age on the finish of the nineteenth century, due to their “unique institutional position,” progressive state attorneys basic “were able to serve as opportunity points for the expression of the ‘public interest’ in the absence of administrative mechanisms or actions by other political institutions,” political scientist Paul Nolette writes.
These attorneys basic sued railroad firms and different massive companies, searching for to get state courts to rein within the rising energy of what have been known as on the time “robber barons.”
Because the New Deal unfolded within the Thirties, some Republican state attorneys basic tried to withstand what they noticed as federal authorities encroachment on state energy, although the first opposition to the New Deal got here from different political actors.
After the Supreme Court docket’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Training choice ordered the desegregation of faculties, just a few Southern Democratic state attorneys basic have been concerned in organizing “massive resistance” within the area, by providing authorized recommendation to state officers against the Brown choice and defending segregation in courtroom.
Within the Nineteen Eighties, state attorneys basic banded collectively to sue federal businesses for failing to implement the legislation or to implement acts of Congress, together with these in regards to the deregulation of business. A decade later, they launched a concerted marketing campaign of lawsuits towards main tobacco firms as a result of the federal authorities was not, they alleged, adequately regulating the tobacco business.
And when Barack Obama entered the White Home, state attorneys basic enthusiastically embraced the function of watchdog and nemesis. Republican state attorneys basic led the resistance with lawsuits over well being coverage, immigration and environmental rules, utilizing their powers very similar to their Democratic counterparts are doing right now.
Texas Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton claims to have sued the Obama administration 100 occasions.
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Former West Virginia Solicitor Basic Elbert Lin, who served because the chief litigator in his state’s lawyer basic’s workplace, tells the story this fashion: “During the eight years of the Obama Administration, states led mostly by Republican attorneys general made it a priority, early and often, to challenge President Obama’s initiatives.”
One in every of them, Texas’ Greg Abbott, sued the Obama administration 31 occasions, at one level describing his job this fashion: “I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and I go home.”
Throughout the first Trump administration, Democratic attorneys basic continued what had occurred underneath Obama. They filed 138 multistate lawsuits, up from the 78 occasions Republicans sued the Obama administration.
And on the finish of President Joe Biden’s time period, Ken Paxton, Texas’ Republican lawyer basic, issued a press launch saying that over the earlier 4 years, he had sued the administration 100 occasions, calling it “an historic milestone.”
‘Expect to be sued’
Supreme Court docket Justice Louis Brandeis as soon as known as states “laboratories of democracy.” Extra just lately, Jeffrey Rosen of the Nationwide Structure Middle praised federalism for persevering with “to promote ideological diversity” in an more and more polarized nation.
That variety has lengthy been on show in what state attorneys basic have performed on the nationwide stage.
Immediately, when some fear that the U.S. constitutional system is breaking down, state attorneys basic try to comprehend the founders’ imaginative and prescient of restricted authorities. They’re mobilizing authorized instruments to vindicate authorized claims whereas additionally utilizing the courts for political functions.
All presidents ought to count on to be sued early and sometimes by state attorneys basic of the alternative celebration. However as lawyer Jeffrey Toobin writes in The New York Instances, “political victories matter more, and last longer, than court cases” in america.
In recent times, fits introduced by state attorneys basic have protected the rights of immigrants, defended reproductive rights and asserted state prerogatives in lots of areas. However whereas these lawsuits have an vital function to play in America’s constitutional system, what residents do is extra vital.
Even profitable litigation by state attorneys basic usually brings solely a one-time victory, however political motion is required to maintain what they obtain in courtroom. And their work can’t be performed with out the help of the residents they serve and who, by and enormous, elect them.