New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
Blue-state lawsuits are more about politics than the law. Lawsuits emanating from Democratic attorneys general against Trump administration policies “are unprecedented in scale and detrimental to constitutional government,” writes John York:
By the end of Trump’s first year in office, Democratic states had already brought 35 lawsuits against his administration. Over the course of his eight years in office, Republicans brought only 46 lawsuits against Obama’s administration.
Democratic attorneys general, pundits, and plaintiff’s lawyers claimthat the reason for this dramatic uptick in legal obstruction is President Trump’s supposed disregard for the Constitution. But this is not the case. Many of the lawsuits emanating from blue-state capitals are not based on any tenable interpretation of the Constitution or any relevant federal statute.
For instance, several blue-state attorneys general claimed that the president lacked authority to bypass environmental regulations to expedite the construction of a border wall, even though a 2005 lawgives the Homeland Security secretary authority to do just this. The case was dismissed.
Right now, three Democratic governors are preparing to bring afederal lawsuit challenging a provision in the recently passed tax overhaul that would limit the deductibility of state and local taxes. They claim this deduction limit violates the equal-protection rights of people living in blue states, since no red-state government has imposed taxes that surpass the deductibility cap. This is an absurd reading of the 14th Amendment. According to the Tax Foundation, this shot-in-the-dark case “will almost certainly fail.”
These threadbare legal arguments are a thin veil for the actual motives of Democratic lawmakers and lawyers. These state officials apparently see themselves as part of the resistance. Burying the president’s agenda under a mountain of paperwork is job No. 1. Defending the Constitution is not only subordinated to this goal, but actually sacrificed in service of it.
[John York, “Progressive ‘Federalism’ Makes a Mockery of the Founders’ Vision,” National Review, April 13]
