Politics

States Grant AGs New Powers To Resist Trump

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

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Kevin Daley Supreme Court correspondent
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Maryland’s general assembly voted to extend new authority to the state’s attorney general this week, empowering him to sue the federal government without the governor’s approval.

The measure is intended to buttress the state’s authority to resist President Donald Trump in the courts.

The Associated Press reports state legislators expressed concerns that the new administration would not enforce regulations meant to protect the Chesapeake Bay and the federal workforce. The state hosts one of the largest populations of federal workers in the country.

State legislators argued the scope of the AG’s powers should mirror those of others around the country.

“There is nothing unprecedented about this resolution,” said Del. Kirill Reznik, a Democrat. “There is nothing unique about this resolution. It simply gives the attorney general the same powers to be able to sue the federal government as 41 other attorneys general. That’s it.”

The state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, claimed the legislation was a nakedly partisan attempt to undermine his administration.

“We have 31 different major policy proposals to try to change Maryland for the better, and they’ve done nothing with any of them and the only two things they’ve accomplished … was this crazy changing the rules for the first time since 1864 so they can play politics in Washington, and they’ve hired somebody full time at the Maryland Democratic Party to attack me,” he said on a local public affairs program.

The state’s attorney general, Brian Frosh, hoped to bring his own lawsuit against Trump’s executive order on refugees, but was precluded from doing so because he lacked the authority to start litigation on his own. He did not want to file an amicus (or “friend-of-the-court”) brief, which merely expresses the state’s views.

The joint resolution was adopted in both chambers in a party-line vote. The governor cannot veto such legislation.

Other states have taken steps to counter the Trump administration in the courts. California hired former attorney general Eric Holder, now a partner at Covington & Burling, to represent the state in challenges to Trump initiatives.

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