Democratic attorneys general from Michigan and a couple other Midwest states looked back on some of their lawsuits against the Trump administration Wednesday as president Donald Trump marks one year in office.
Michigan has gotten involved in more than 40 lawsuits, on issues including birthright citizenship, and restore federal funding after attempted pauses.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel estimates the lawsuits have brought more than $2 billion back to Michigan. She said families in need of childcare, doctors treating Medicaid patients, and older adults using food programs would all have suffered without that money.
“These are harms we prevented from fast, organized action. And we will continue to fight against these actions and protect our residents and to help keep them whole,” Nessel said. Her office has argued in many cases that the funding was cut illegally, after the money was already allocated by Congress or approved by executive-branch departments.
The Trump administration has said the funding pauses were necessary to root out what it describes as government waste. Courts have paused most of the contested actions while the cases play out.
In the meantime, Trump has made several changes to the federal government, its staff, and functions. That includes the dismantling of various departments and agencies, including the Education Department.
Nessel said that has made it tough to track what happened to money destined for Michigan.
“I actually just had a meeting with superintendents from all around the state for independent school districts. And, with the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, sometimes they don’t even know who to call to find out where their money is,” Nessel said.
Despite Nessel and the other attorneys general on the call with reporters celebrating their wins in court, not everyone has celebrated the actions. Michigan Republicans have publicly criticized her for signing onto the federal lawsuits.
Wednesday, the Michigan House of Representatives voted to limit the state attorney general’s powers to sign onto lawsuits or get involved with cases on its own.
“This package (of legislation) restores balance, protects constitutional rights, and stops the weaponization of our state government,” state Representative Angela Rigas (R-Caledonia) said in a statement.
Nessel, however, said she feels there are many people who, for political reasons, can't let on that they appreciate the money the lawsuits have secured.
During Wednesday’s press conference, she also shared concerns about what could happen to Michiganders’ data that the federal government accessed.
That’s even after a federal lawsuit against Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE (which was not actually a cabinet department) was dropped.
Nessel accuses DOGE of seeking and going through social security data and private information for crime victims and people on Medicaid, among others.
“This illegal manipulation of federal IT infrastructure by unauthorized individuals threatens not only state financial security, but also the integrity of critical national systems,” Nessel said.
Regarding the social security claims, the U.S. Justice Department has defended DOGE’s work and argues DOGE didn’t have access to “systems of record.
”The Justice Department did admit, however, that DOGE accessed more than it had previously acknowledged and used a third-party server to store some of that data.
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