Their strategy to confront Trump on birthright citizenship and other issues reflects an accelerating pattern of multistate challenges against the federal government brought largely along party lines, said Paul Nolette, an associate professor of political science at Marquette University, who maintains a database to track such cases.
He identified 76 multistate lawsuits during President George W. Bush’s eight years in office and 80 in President Barack Obama’s two terms. The numbers skyrocketed to 160 cases during Trump’s first term and 133 in President Joe Biden’s four-year tenure.
“AGs are suing over just about everything — every major policy, every regulation, every attempt to reverse a previous administration,” Nolette said. He added that the increasingly prominent role of judges, in lieu of Congress, in establishing federal policy is unhealthy for a democratic system.
