State attorney generals challenge Musk-led DOGE control over US federal agencies News
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
State attorney generals challenge Musk-led DOGE control over US federal agencies

Fourteen US state attorney generals filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court against Elon Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and President Donald Trump on Thursday. The lawsuit challenges DOGE’s legal authority and Musk’s recent actions such as shutting down or exercising sweeping control over the functions of 14 federal agencies, including USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In the filing, the states lay out the critical importance of checks and balances to maintain the separation of powers, a fundamental organizing principle of the US Constitution. One of those checks and balances is the Appointments Clause which the filing describes as “among the Constitution’s most ‘significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme.'” The clause requires the president to obtain the Senate’s consent to appoint “officers” to “offices” that Congress has already “established by law.” This refers to Congress’ exclusive power to create government departments such as the Department of Defense, Department of Health, and the Department of Justice, and the president’s power to appoint heads of those departments.

Trump’s executive order creating DOGE renames an existing Congressionally approved department, the US Digital Service, and gives it the new mission to reduce costs. The lawsuit characterizes this as circumventing the intentional and deliberate separation of powers set out by the Framers of the US Constitution, between those who create government departments (Congress) and those who can appoint the heads of those offices (President).

Furthermore, the states allege that Musk and his DOGE personnel have engaged in conduct going beyond the powers of a department head. This includes their broad reach into 14 US federal agencies, stopping Treasury payments to the plaintiff states, attempting to shut down USAID — an agency created by an Act of Congress–and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Both departments’ websites were taken down, and remain offline.

The plaintiff states are asking the court for a temporary restraining order to stop Musk from his unauthorized activities such as ordering any change in the disbursement of public funds by agencies, cancelling government contracts, dismantling agencies created by law or asserting control over agencies. Additionally, the states are asking for a declaration that Musk’s actions to date are outside his authority and are of no legal effect.

President Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency through an executive order on the first day in office. Musk publicly stated a goal to cut $2 trillion dollars from the federal budget, which he has since walked back on.

Last week, 19 US states sued Trump to prevent further DOGE access to the US Treasury. The Department of Justice asked the court to lift the temporary restraining order following the lawsuit on February 9.

Musk and DOGE personnel actions have also led to various lawsuits for their unprecedented access to government departments, unilateral action over agencies’ functioning, and complete lack of oversight mechanisms.

THIS DAY @ LAW

March from Selma begins

On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. began his third march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest racial discrimination in the Jim Crow South. By March 25, over 25,000 people led by Dr. King reached Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically, the march called attention to the suppression of African-American voting rights and a police assault on a civil rights demonstration three weeks prior. Five months later, in August 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. Read a history of the march from Selma to Montgomery.