Arizona AG Kris Mayes’s mixed record against Trump in court includes setback on birthright citizenship, partial win on school funds
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, left, and President Donald Trump. (Mayes photo courtesy Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Trump photo by Shealah Craighead/The White House)
WASHINGTON – Three weeks ago, the Trump administration froze $6.8 billion earmarked for secondary schools across the country.
Arizona was one of 22 states, along with the District of Columbia, that went to court over that funding, in one of the hundreds of lawsuits filed against President Donald Trump this year. Attorney General Kris Mayes has led or signed onto 24 of those suits.
Last Friday, the administration relented, releasing $1.3 billion of the frozen school funds – a partial victory for the states that sued. Arizona expects about $24 million of that.
Since Trump returned to office in January, Mayes has positioned Arizona on the legal frontlines of the resistance, filing lawsuits against his administration about once a week on average.
“We are in a long-term world of chaos when it comes to federal funding,” said Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, which represents 22,000 public school educators. “I could not be more proud of Attorney General Mayes.”
For decades, it has been common for presidents to face a barrage of lawsuits filed by state attorneys general from the opposing party.
By the end of President Joe Biden’s term, 133 such multistate lawsuits had been filed – nearly all by Republican attorneys general.
Judges have issued rulings – some temporary – in half of Mayes’ lawsuits so far. In 75% of those, according to her office, the most recent ruling has gone in her favor.
That includes the education funding case.
“Every one of these lawsuits is about protecting Arizonans,” Mayes told Cronkite News in a statement provided by aides.
The most important case in the loss column was on birthright citizenship. Arizona joined four other states that tried to block an executive order ending automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children unless they have at least one parent in the country lawfully.
Three federal judges issued nationwide injunctions against Trump’s order, in Arizona’s lawsuit and two similar challenges. But on the final day of its term, the U.S. Supreme Court swept aside those injunctions, ruling that lower federal courts have no authority to block presidential directives nationwide.
The 6-3 ruling on June 27 was a blow to Trump adversaries, making it far more difficult for states to stymie presidential orders.
Trump hailed the ruling as a “giant win,” an assessment that constitutional scholars broadly agree with.
Mayes vowed to keep trying to overturn the birthright citizenship order, which she called “blatantly unconstitutional.” That’s also the legal consensus, despite the Supreme Court’s procedural ruling. In a separate case, a federal judge halted implementation of Trump’s order after certifying a class action, an avenue the Supreme Court did allow.
Some of Mayes’ suits have resulted in outright victories.
In April, Arizona joined 16 other states challenging delays in grant applications at the National Institutes of Health. The states also challenged the termination of hundreds of grants that NIH had already issued, under Trump directives to cut off support for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or programs involving transgender rights or vaccine hesitancy.
In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge William Young issued a final judgment saying he had “never seen government racial discrimination like this.” He ordered the grants reinstated – giving Mayes one of her clearest wins against Trump.
Courts have yet to issue rulings on a third of Mayes’ lawsuits.
In the rest, she secured an injunction 80% of the time. Mayes touts her growing track record against Trump as an “overwhelming win rate.”
But some of those wins were short-lived.
Those injunctions were overturned on appeal in four of the cases. Two of those involved mass firings of federal workers.
With 18 other states and D.C., Arizona persuaded another federal judge in Massachusetts, Judge Myong Joun, to halt mass layoffs at the Department of Education. The Supreme Court overturned his order on appeal, though, allowing the layoffs to proceed.
In a separate case with 19 other states and D.C., Arizona sued over what Mayes called “illegal mass layoffs” of probationary federal employees. That effort, too, yielded a preliminary win that quickly turned into defeat on appeal.
Of the 344 lawsuits challenging Trump administration actions filed through Thursday, according to Just Security, a law journal that tracks litigation, two dozen involve multiple states as plaintiffs.
On April 23, Mayes and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield led a group of states seeking to block impending tariffs on goods from China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union. They argue the president lacks the authority to increase import taxes without congressional action.
The U.S. Court of International Trade blocked those levies from taking effect a month later. The next day, an appeals court allowed the tariffs to proceed as the case plays out.
That’s been a recurring pattern in many of the cases Mayes has pursued – initial victory followed by setback on appeal.
“Alongside the other Democratic attorneys general, I will prove that the president and other administration officials are not above the law,” she said.