The Washington State Attorney General’s Office (AGO) billed over 11,000 staff hours fighting the federal government in the eight months following the 2024 election, with more than one-third devoted to a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that cut federal funding to medical institutions conducting gender-transition procedures on minors.
Records obtained by The Center Square reveal that the AGO’s legal team billed 2,800 hours in February 2025 alone on the lawsuit challenging Trump’s Executive Order 14,187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order withholds certain federal funds from hospitals and research institutions that provide puberty blockers and transgender surgeries to children.
The lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of discrimination and overreach, calling the executive order “a cruel and baseless broadside against transgender youth” and “a blatant abuse of power.” The AGO claims the order violates the Tenth Amendment by interfering with states’ authority over medical regulation.
The time and resources devoted to the lawsuit have raised serious concerns among grassroots organizations, particularly those backing conservative ballot measures. Let’s Go Washington, which is sponsoring Initiative No. IL26‑638 to prohibit boys from competing in girls’ sports, questioned whether the AGO can impartially defend ballot initiatives if they conflict with its political stance.
“Let’s Go WA has significant concerns about the myriad political conflicts… between a highly partisan AGO, his former firm… and our current ballot initiative effort,” said Hallie Herzberg, the group’s Director of Communications. She cited public frustration with confusing ballot titles and past efforts where initiative language was viewed as skewed.
The AGO is currently defending its title and summary for the sports fairness initiative against a challenge brought by the Legal Counsel for Youth and Children, a Seattle-based nonprofit. Let’s Go Washington intervened in that legal battle, siding with the AGO to defend the language, but still expressed distrust in the office’s long-term neutrality.
The conflict deepened with revelations that Pacifica Law Group — the AG’s former law firm — is now suing the state over a different ballot initiative concerning natural gas usage, despite holding contracts with the AGO that require approval before suing state clients. Critics argue the situation reveals an ongoing entanglement between partisan politics and taxpayer-funded legal efforts.
In response, AGO spokesman Mike Faulk claimed the office acts neutrally in drafting ballot language and “routinely defends state laws regardless of whether the policy may conflict with other views.” He pointed out that in the sports initiative case, opponents—not sponsors—challenged the title, and the AGO defended its language successfully.
Still, with nearly 11,000 hours of staff time spent in eight months on high-profile lawsuits targeting President Trump’s policies, and with the 2024 election behind them, many Washington voters are left questioning whether their state’s top legal office serves all citizens equally — or only those aligned with its ideological agenda.
