Coming into Donald Trump's presidency, Democratic attorneys general dominated talk as one of the best and only lines of defense against the GOP-laden federal government. In particular, New York's Eric Schneiderman and California's Xavier Becerra got a lot of ink. But when it came time to cripple Trump's egregious Muslim ban, it was Washington attorney general Bob Ferguson who launched the broadest and perhaps most effective attack on the order.
Most attorneys general who filed suit against Trump's ban did so on behalf of aggrieved individuals in their states—often university professors and students who were not allowed entry or re-entry into the U.S. But Ferguson found a different opening, largely because he and his colleagues had dared to imagine that Trump would actually make good on one of his worst pledges: banning Muslims from traveling to the country. Alexander Burns writes of Ferguson:
After rushing home and conferring with staff members, he began calling up Washington-based corporations — including Expedia and Amazon — to enlist them in a lawsuit. [...]
Mr. Ferguson, a cerebral former state chess champion, said his office had been bracing for just such an action. “We’d been anticipating that the president would execute an executive order along these lines,” he said. “We’d been having internal communications about it.”
Mr. Ferguson told his staff that he viewed Mr. Trump’s policy as thoroughly unconstitutional. An effective lawsuit, he said, should leave the order in tatters. [...]
Mr. Ferguson filed the first and broadest state lawsuit on Monday, Jan. 30, with a far more sweeping complaint depicting the executive order as an unlawful assault on Washington businesses and communities.
Ultimately, Ferguson's suit resulted in the broadest halt (a temporary nationwide injunction) of any of the lawsuits filed against Trump's ban. While he had asked other states to join him, only Minnesota's attorney general, Lori Swanson, agreed to sign on to the original suit.
There's no doubt that all of the lawyers working across the country to shield innocent people from this ill-conceived ban are heroes—the ACLU lawyers, the attorneys general in multiple states, and any number of pro-bono attorneys who rushed to airports on a moment's notice.
But Ferguson's challenge stood out. It hasn't survived the appeals process yet—oral arguments at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled for Tuesday, 3 PM PT. But it's still the most imaginative of the legal challenges, providing the biggest opportunity for broadsiding Trump's executive overreach. And just to be clear, Ferguson’s counterparts were thrilled at his success and have filed a joint amicus brief in support of the suit.
Rather than demonstrating weakness, the diffuse nature of the Democratic legal response ended up working to the state attorneys general’s advantage, effectively allowing Mr. Trump’s foes to test multiple strategies before multiple federal judges.
And when the anti-Trump lawyers faced one setback in court on Friday, as a federal judge in Boston declined to extend a decision suspending parts of the travel ban, that disappointment was quickly overshadowed by Mr. Ferguson’s victory in Seattle.
“All of us cheered,” [Massachusetts attorney general Maura] Healey said, recalling the news of the ruling.
One thing about chaotic moments in history is that they allow true leaders to emerge from unexpected places in unexpected moments. Now is a relatively organic time for talent to rise to the top—not because people are playing the same game everyone else is playing, but specifically because they are playing a different one. In the awful age of Trump, emerging leaders will be one bright spot we can look forward to.