‘Political conflict’ alleged over WA AGO’s involvement in initiative legal battle

By TJ Martinell
The Center Square

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office billed more than 11,000 hours of attorney and staff work on lawsuits against the federal government in an eight-month period following the November 2024 election, according to records obtained by The Center Square.

More than a third of those hours were spent working on a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order regarding federal funding for medical providers who perform gender-affirming procedures on children.

The AGO’s legal arguments and time spent on the lawsuit has drawn concern from a state-based organization behind an initiative to prevent boys from participating in girl’s sports. The group is concerned about whether the AG will adequately defend the initiative’s ballot title, summary or legality if it passed and was legally challenged.

“Given the amount of legal work already being done at the direction of the AGO on a potentially contentious issue, Let’s Go WA has significant concerns about the myriad political conflicts that appear to be at play between a highly partisan AGO, his former firm that performs substantial work on behalf of the state at his direction, and our current ballot initiative effort that will likely be challenged in court once successful,” Let’s Go Washington Director of Communications Hallie Herzberg wrote in an email to The Center Square.

Between November 2024 and June, the AGO billed 11,010 hours on 22 lawsuits in federal court. Before Trump was inaugurated in January, 177 hours were billed in November-December 2024 on a lawsuit against a potential birthright citizenship executive order. The billing documents don’t show how much taxpayers paid for those staff hours.

On Jan. 28, Trump signed Executive Order 14,187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order cut federal funding, such as research and education grants, to medical institutions that perform underage gender affirming procedures such as prescribing puberty blockers and cosmetic-style mastectomies on females.

In its lawsuit, the AGO argued that the EO “is a cruel and baseless broadside against transgender youth, their families, and the doctors and medical institutions that provide them this critical care. It is an official statement of bigotry from the President that directs agencies to openly discriminate against vulnerable youth on the basis of their transgender status and sex. It is also a blatant abuse of power. The Order usurps spending and legislative powers belonging exclusively to Congress, and seizes the States’ historic police powers to regulate the practice of medicine in violation of the Tenth Amendment.”

According to the records obtained by The Center Square, AGO attorneys and staff billed 2,800 hours in February alone on that lawsuit, which is still in federal court.

In Thurston County Superior Court, the AGO this year defended its draft ballot title and summary for Initiative No. IL26-638, which would prohibit boys from participating in girls’ sports, against a legal challenge by the Legal Counsel for Youth and Children, nonprofit organization based in Seattle. The initiative is being sponsored by Let’s Go Washington.

In an email to The Center Square, Let’s Go Washington wrote that “there has been deep suspicion with supporters of the initiative process going back to $30 car tabs about representation by the Attorney General’s Office on behalf of popularly ballot measures that are passed and then challenged. After the 2024 election, the feedback was overwhelmingly that voters were frustrated by confusing ballot title language chosen by the AGO, which is always a contentious process.”

Let’s Go Washington also noted in their email concerns about perceived conflicts of interests with a lawsuit involving an initiative regarding the use of natural gas use in buildings for heating and cooking. At the time the initiative was on the ballot, now-Attorney General Nick Brown was openly opposed to the initiative while a partner with Pacifica Law Group, which is now suing the state over the initiative despite having active contracts with the AGO that required its permission for Pacifica to sue its client.

AGO Deputy Communications Director Mike Faulk wrote in an email to The Center Square that “if the sponsor of a measure thinks we have written a biased title or summary, they have the opportunity to challenge it in court. Here, the sponsors of the measure (Let’s Go Washington) did not do that. In fact, a group opposed to the measure challenged the ballot title we wrote as too biased in favor of the measure, and Let’s Go Washington intervened in the case to help defend the title we had written. It is obvious we neutrally drafted the ballot title and summary for this measure.”

Regarding the ability of the AGO to defend the initiative if passed and then challenged, he wrote “we routinely defend state laws regardless of whether the policy may conflict with other views. We’ve done that effectively many times and there’s no reason to question our ability to do that here.”