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The Democratic Attorneys General Are On It [1]
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Date: 2025-02-28
I haven’t seen a post here about this Politico article yet so I just want to highlight some of the major points. I rarely turn to Politico for news but the writing is excellent (though long) and has given me a bit of hope. Below I attempt to maintain fair use with a few sections and quotations. Please read the article for more juicy details.
Attorneys general in 23 states have banded together to push back against Trump and Musk. Two of the AGs got the ball rolling, Bob Ferguson of Washington (state) and Rob Bonta of California. In 2024, Ferguson attended the Democratic Attorneys General Association meeting in Seattle.
The host state’s attorney general is traditionally granted a speaking slot at the meeting, and Ferguson wanted to use his to deliver his colleagues a grave warning: They didn’t know what was coming. (Snip) Even though the 2024 election was still nine months away, Ferguson implored them, it was past time to start preparing for the cases they would file if Trump returned to office. He recalled the work his office did throughout 2016, when Ferguson responded to Trump’s campaign-trail provocation about banning Muslims from entering the United States by prepping a constitutional challenge, just in case. When Trump did issue such an order a week into his term, Ferguson’s office was able to file a brief against the policy within three days. “Whatever he is saying or articulating on the campaign trail,” Ferguson told the assembled attorneys, “assume he’s going to do it — no matter how outlandish it may be — and prepare for that.” By summer, they had established a framework for developing multistate suits they could all get behind. They had figured out who had the most experience in which courts, and which venues could be the best to file in.
Bonta and colleagues used Project 2025 as a roadmap.
In Sacramento, Rob Bonta had been preparing to take on more national cases since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A draft challenge to a potential federal abortion ban was filed in a “brief bank” that Bonta maintained in anticipation of hypothetical scenarios his office could one day face. The brief bank grew after the Seattle meeting. Thinking in outlines, Bonta and his growing litigation staff worked out the subheads, the ways Trump could attack under each one: military interventions, budget maneuvers, revoking federal waivers and pulling payments Unlike Ferguson, who had had to speculate about what Trump’s campaign rhetoric might look like when translated into policy, Bonta and his colleagues had a roadmap. They studied Project 2025, a sprawling set of policy proposals from the conservative Heritage Foundation that would dramatically re-envision the federal government.
The shock result on election night caused alarm.
Instead, as dejected lawmakers and labor leaders streamed into the hallway, Bonta’s mind turned to the year’s worth of planning he had hoped would “gather dust” after a Harris win. He and his colleagues, he said, had strategized down to the detail of which courts to file in, the virtues of facing state versus federal judges, and how to ensure their cases would have standing to take on Trump. “If he violates the law — as he has said he would, as Project 2025 says he will,” Bonta said, “then we are ready.”
Of course all of the planning had not prepared the group for Elon Musk’s reign of terror, but they are getting up to speed. The photo I posted (which is similar to one posted in Politico) suggests there is more in the story about him, but they haven’t yet decided whether he has violated the law or is just a mouthpiece for Trump, so they are planning for both scenarios.
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