Taking their cue from red states that regularly banded together to sue the Obama administration, Democratic attorneys general began challenging the Trump administration in court the first month President Trump took office, starting with the travel ban.
The litigation by coalition has continued unabated, with at least six multistate lawsuits filed against Trump policies in August alone, most prominently against the president’s attempt to deny green cards and visa extensions to foreign nationals seeking public assistance.
Those August suits brought the total to 87 multistate legal actions in the 31 months since Trump took office, according to a database compiled by Marquette University political scientist Paul Nolette.
The litigant states tend to be the same in most cases, among them California, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Illinois, Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts and Colorado, along with the District of Columbia.
The figures surpass the 78 multistate suits against President Barack Obama in eight years and the 76 against President George W. Bush during his two terms, according to Nolette.
The most frequent state litigants against Obama included Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
The Democratic litigants are finding greater success against Trump than the Republicans did against Obama, said Nolette, with 40 victories and nine losses under their belt, a success rate of 82 percent. Winning, in Nolette’s database, includes completed cases as well as cases still being appealed.
Their most dramatic recent win came when the Supreme Court halted the administration’s plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
The figures present only a partial picture of Trump’s record in court as hundreds of cases have been brought by advocacy groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and civil rights activists such as Lambda Legal.
