“We are getting up and fighting back,” said Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. He leads a coalition of states suing Biden over an executive order regarding the ‘social costs’ of greenhouse gas emissions.
Republican Attorneys General, says Schmitt, vice president of the Republican Attorneys General, “plays a very important role in controlling a very aggressive administrative state that has been unleashed.”
Just two months after Biden’s term, the challenges of the Republican – led states to the president’s agenda have already expanded, affecting everything from tax policy to climate change and abortion. Five Republican attorneys general intervened in the appointment process and asked Biden to nominate his nominee for position no. 3 at the Department of Justice, Vanita Gupta.
And the lawsuit is likely to begin only as Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress withdraw their Trump-era policies and begin implementing their own.
This is “the rise of Republican AGs as a counterweight to the Biden administration’s outreach,” said Mark Weaver, a Republican strategist and former deputy attorney general of Ohio. ‘It’s the natural tension and the balance of power, right? Leaders in government will use the leverage at their disposal to advance their policy goals. And state Republican attorneys general have the ability to file lawsuits. And that’s what they’re doing. ”
State Attorneys General has traditionally taken a more prominent position in Washington when a president of the other party is in power. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, when he was attorney general, sued the Obama administration so often that in 2013 he said, ‘I’m going in this morning. I’m suing Barack Obama, and then I’m going home. ”
Years later, the Democrats granted the favor. Former California Attorney General – and newly confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services – Xavier Becerra alone has filed no fewer than 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration over issues ranging from health care and immigration to climate change and gun control.
The challenges Republicans are now facing against Biden represent ‘the other side of the Democrats’ coin that literally brings hundreds of lawsuits against the Trump administration, which in turn built on a trend’ of Republicans suing Obama, Rob McKenna said. , the former Republican attorney, said. general of Washington and former president of the National Association of Attorneys General.
He said one reason for spreading such litigation was that successive administrations were increasingly relying on the use of executive orders, ‘so as to open themselves up to legal challenges’ over the scope of executive power.
“On the political side,” McKenna said, “the base of every party, Democrats and Republicans, expects their Attorney General to act and fight for issues in which the base believes… There is a greater expectation now that the AGs will be active, and if you do not act, you will probably come under fire among people in your own party. ”
This was clearer than ever in the aftermath of the November election. Following the defeat of then-President Donald Trump, it was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who led a failed attempt by Republican states to overthrow the election in several battlefield states – though not his own. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has crossed state borders to advance Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud in Nevada. And an arm of the Republican Attorneys General sent out robo calls to encourage people to attend the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally at the Capitol on January 6th. RAGA officials removed them from the call and condemned the ensuing riot.
At least one Republican state attorney general who did not want to run in the by-elections, Lawrence Wasden, Idaho, has faced accusations in his homeland, and Republican lawmakers there are trying to curb his power.
For Democrats, the involvement of Republican attorneys general in the aftermath of the election was something more damaging than typical partisan warfare. On the contrary, it was “something we just have not seen before,” said Maura Healey, Massachusetts’ attorney general and co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General.
“There could be fights,” said Healey, who was a leader of the Democratic Attorney General’s resistance to Trump. ‘There can be challenges in determining the extent or extent of federal authority over a state, for example, right? And there can be a Republican philosophy around and a Democratic philosophy around there. So, we’m used to those fights, OK? But that’s something else. ”
Now, she said, “It seems unfortunate … that there are certain Republican AGs who seem to be trying to stop the Biden and Harris government from moving forward, and I think that’s a shame.”
Alabama’s Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said the extent of the Republicans’ legal challenges against Biden will depend on how aggressive his government is, primarily around executive action. But GOP’s attorneys general will not just try to block elements of Biden’s agenda, he said. They will also try to preserve the policies of the Trump era that sued Democrats – and that Republican Attorneys General will now intervene in an effort to preserve.