Democratic attorneys common are getting ready for the battle of their careers towards President-elect Donald Trump, who plans to start mass deportations on “day one,” amongst many different merciless insurance policies.
These prime authorized public servants are vowing to guard the constitutional rights of their residents, and a few are crossing state traces to staff up for the battle.
West
Kris Mayes, Arizona
Mayes assumed workplace in 2023, after beating the Republican candidate by 511 votes. The race concerned important consideration to voting rights and election integrity. Her focus is on preventing fraud, cyber scams, and elder abuse in addition to pushing again towards extremist assaults on reproductive rights, prosecuting political corruption, and defending voting rights.
“I don’t consider, in electing Donald Trump, Arizona voters voted to shred the U.S. and Arizona constitutions,” she stated shortly after the presidential election. “And if Donald Trump tries to try this, he’ll should undergo me first.”
Rob Bonta, California
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Bonta in 2021. He’s the primary particular person of Filipino descent and solely second Asian-American to be the state’s legal professional common. His prime priorities are stopping gun violence, serving to victims of crime, and defending civil rights and reproductive rights.
Bonta has a $25 million authorized conflict chest to battle Trump.
“Let me be clear, President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda is draconian and his rhetoric, xenophobic,” stated Bonta at a current press convention. “We’re issuing up to date insurance policies to information establishments and their workers in complying with California regulation limiting state and native participation in immigration enforcement actions.”
Phil Weiser, Colorado
Weiser has been Colorado’s legal professional common since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He has used his workplace to guard the Endangered Species Act, battle fraud, make sure the state’s proper to manage greenhouse fuel emissions from vehicles, and maintain the Sackler household—which owned Purdue Pharma, maker of the extremely addictive drug OxyContin—accountable for his or her function within the opioid epidemic.
“It is onerous to know precisely what’s coming. We’re going to be prepared for a variety of situations,” he informed ABC Information on Nov. 21 concerning Trump’s mass deportations. “We’re going to be sure that we function by the regulation. … We’re nervous about residents. We’re nervous about folks’s spouses, grandparents, getting swept up in these indiscriminate raids.”
Anne Lopez, Hawaii
Lopez has served the Aloha State since 2022. Her prime priorities are rising entry to well being care and increasing reasonably priced housing. Lopez and Hawaii Gov. Josh Inexperienced are amassing a $10 million authorized conflict chest towards Trump. They joined different blue states in getting ready a coalition towards the Trump administration.
Aaron Ford, Nevada
Ford has served since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He’s the primary Black particular person to carry the workplace in Nevada’s historical past.
“It will be a deceive say that President-elect Trump’s upcoming time period doesn’t concern me, based mostly on his prior disregard for the regulation,” Ford stated. “Although there are numerous areas which concern me, together with reproductive rights and antitrust protections, I’ll pay shut consideration to any motion that looks as if it might run afoul of the regulation.”
Raúl Torrez, New Mexico
Torrez was sworn into workplace in 2023. His priorities are defending democracy, crime prevention, and reproductive well being care entry. Earlier this 12 months, he launched a report on the legal investigation into New Mexico’s fake-elector scheme, which Trump promoted.
“It’s disgraceful that New Mexicans have been enlisted in a plot to undermine democracy and thwart the peaceable and orderly switch of energy,” he stated in a press release in January.
Dan Rayfield, Oregon
Rayfield will likely be sworn into workplace in January 2025. His incoming priorities are gun violence, substance abuse and homelessness, reproductive well being care entry, shopper and employee protections, and environmental coverage.
“The values in Oregon are extraordinarily clear in terms of abortion entry,” he lately stated in an interview with native information. “An awesome majority of Oregonians assist abortion entry right here in our state, and in order an legal professional common representing the values of our state, Mission ‘25 and a few of the issues that they wish to do in terms of abortion entry are deeply regarding.”
Nick Brown, Washington
Brown will likely be sworn in January 2025. He’s lately been vocal concerning the “uniquely harmful threats” Trump will carry along with his second administration.
“Make no mistake, I do view the threats from the subsequent Trump administration as profoundly severe and as uniquely harmful to a few of the protections and pursuits right here in Washington state,” he stated on Dec. 3.
Midwest
Kwame Raoul, Illinois
Raoul has served as legal professional common since 2019. His focus is on local weather legal guidelines, akin to power effectivity requirements, and preventing towards illegal pharmaceutical practices.
In 2018, he spoke out towards Trump’s try to kill the Inexpensive Care Act. Every week later, he joined different Democratic attorneys common by opposing Trump’s merciless coverage of household separation. In September, the court docket granted his judgment that Chicago’s Trump Worldwide Lodge and Tower violated the state’s environmental legal guidelines. He and Colorado Lawyer Normal Phil Weiser have drawn up a playbook to battle Trump.
“For years, Trump Tower didn’t comply with state and federal rules that defend the well being of the Chicago River and the stability of important aquatic ecosystems therein,” Raoul stated. “All entities—irrespective of who they’re—have to be held accountable after they willfully disregard our legal guidelines.”
Dana Nessel, Michigan
Nessel assumed workplace in 2019 and was the primary brazenly homosexual particular person to be elected to statewide workplace in Michigan. She has gained nationwide consideration for her work on shopper safety, legal justice reform, LGBTQ+ points, and political corruption. This 12 months, Nessel spoke on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in assist of Harris.
In November, Nessel wrote an op-ed within the Detroit Free Press slamming Trump’s Cupboard picks as displaying “disdain for victims of intercourse assault.”
“With these nominations, we’re telling survivors of sexual assault that they don’t matter, that their trauma is meaningless and that they need to keep silent,” she stated. “And they’re going to.”
Keith Ellison, Minnesota
Ellison started serving in 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He’s the primary Black American and Muslim American to carry the workplace in Minnesota’s historical past. Ellison has labored on points associated to the safety of staff and environmental advocacy, and performed a distinguished function within the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the previous police officer convicted of the homicide of George Floyd in 2021.
“If [Trump] violates the rights of individuals, we’re gonna sue, it is easy as that,” he informed reporters.
Josh Kaul, Wisconsin
Kaul has served since 2019. He launched an investigation into Trump’s fake-elector scheme within the 2020 election.
“We have now been examined on this workplace,” Kaul stated in a press convention on Nov. 8. “If the brand new administration infringes upon the freedoms of Wisconsinites or makes an attempt to make use of our system of justice as a software for vengeance, we’ll act.”
He additionally chimed in on his workplace’s effort to guard reproductive rights.
“Of us are nervous about what the longer term holds for girls’s potential to make their very own reproductive well being care choices,” he added. “These sorts of actions are incorrect and we’re dedicated on the Division of Justice to standing up towards them.”
East
William Tong, Connecticut
Tong has served as legal professional common since 2019. In 2020, he was a part of a multistate lawsuit towards the Trump administration over the rollback of environmental rules associated to local weather change and air-quality requirements.
“Primary, we don’t know the way it’s going to go down,” Tong informed a bunch of residents after Trump’s victory. “We all know it’ll probably be aggressive, and hardly a day glided by once I first turned legal professional common that I didn’t get a cellphone name about an undocumented particular person in a church or someplace, and what can we do? That was unhealthy, however I anticipate it to be 10 occasions that.”
Kathy Jennings, Delaware
Jennings has served the state since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. Her prime priorities are company accountability, “making Delaware a safer place to reside and lift our kids,” and bettering the justice system for all.
In 2022, she criticized the GOP for spreading lies concerning the 2020 election that led to the violent Capitol rebel on Jan. 6, 2021. “The truth that 18 Republican attorneys common who’re sworn to uphold the rule of regulation tried to subvert it’s profoundly disturbing,” Jennings stated. “Even in Delaware, our president’s house state, our state Republican Get together filed a lawsuit that tried to throw out 80,000 vote-by-mail ballots in our small state. That’s about 16% of all of the ballots our state forged within the common election.”
Brian Schwalb, District of Columbia
Schwalb was sworn into workplace in 2023. His priorities are enhancing public security and defending younger folks, selling fairness and alternative inside the District, tackling the rise in hate crimes, and defending democracy within the wake of Jan. 6.
In 2023, Schwalb opened an investigation towards Leonard Leo, a Trump ally and architect of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court docket, on allegations of violating nonprofit tax legal guidelines.
Aaron Frey, Maine
Frey has served since 2019 and was reelected for his fourth time period in November. Frey has labored to carry pharmaceutical corporations accountable and joined the multistate coalition opposing Trump.
“I will likely be an open and prepared accomplice to communities and organizations working for a humane immigration system,” Frey stated shortly after this 12 months’s election.
Frey added that he joined 20 different state legal professional generals to reply to immigration insurance policies of Trump’s second time period, and be sure that “the Structure and the legal guidelines of Maine are upheld within the coming years.”
Anthony Brown, Maryland
Brown was sworn in as legal professional common in 2023. He’s the primary Black American elected legal professional common of the state. His focus is on defending democracy and the suitable to vote, legalizing hashish, defending reproductive rights, and stopping gun violence.
“Preserving the rule of regulation in service of justice for each Marylander stays my highest precedence,” Brown stated in a press release the day after the election. “The Workplace of the Lawyer Normal will proceed to make use of each software at our disposal to make sure the rights of Marylanders are protected, no matter modifications on the federal stage.”
Andrea Campbell, Massachusetts
Campbell took workplace in 2023 and is the primary Black girl to function legal professional common in Massachusetts’ historical past. Her priorities are legal justice reform, shopper safety, and environmental justice. Earlier this 12 months, she campaigned for “expensive buddy” Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Campbell stated she’s ready to defend the state’s abortion-provider protect regulation towards Trump. The regulation protects suppliers from authorized motion if their follow goes towards different states’ abortion legal guidelines.
Matt Platkin, New Jersey
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy appointed Platkin to the place in 2022. Platkin performed a major function in advancing authorized points associated to legal justice reform, environmental protections, and financial coverage.
“Relaxation assured, we’re able to step in and I will likely be ready to sue him and see him in court docket,” Platkin stated after Trump’s win. “It isn’t one thing I get up each day dying to do. It isn’t the explanation that I used to be honored to take this job. However it’s one thing I’m now ready to do to guard the residents of this state.”
Letitia “Tish” James, New York
James has served since 2018 and was reelected in 2022. She’s the primary Black girl to carry the workplace, and Trump as soon as known as her “the WORST Lawyer Normal within the U.S.”
In 2019, James launched a high-profile civil investigation into the Trump Group to find out whether or not the corporate had engaged in fraud by inflating property values in monetary statements. The case centered on whether or not these inflated valuations have been used to safe favorable loans and keep away from paying taxes. In September 2022, after a three-year investigation, James filed a $250 million lawsuit towards Donald Trump and his kids—Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump—and ultimately elevated it to $370 million.
The civil lawsuit is ongoing, and Trump has sought to have the case dismissed, however the courts have usually dominated towards him.
“We have created contingency plans, so it doesn’t matter what the subsequent administration throws at us, we’re prepared,” she stated the day after the election. “We’re prepared to reply to their assaults. We’re prepared to reply to any makes an attempt to chop or eradicate any funding to the nice state of New York.”
Jeff Jackson, North Carolina
This 12 months, Jackson gained his election in a state that went to Trump. He’ll be sworn into workplace in January 2025. His priorities are tackling the fentanyl epidemic, shopper safety, and supporting regulation enforcement.
Peter Neronha, Rhode Island
Neronha has served since 2019 and has a historical past of preventing Trump in the course of the president-elect’s first administration, throughout which he joined a coalition of Democratic attorneys common opposing Trump’s nationwide emergency declaration concerning the U.S.-Mexico border.
Charity Clark, Vermont
Clark was sworn into workplace in 2023. Her prime priorities are tackling local weather change, preventing for small companies and shoppers, and legal justice reform.
“The federal authorities can’t break federal statute. They’ll’t violate the Structure, and it’s attorneys common like me who will signify the states in ensuring that that doesn’t occur,” stated Clark in an interview.
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