On February 13, 2025, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel co-led a coalition of 14 states in suing the Trump administration for the unlawful delegation of executive power to Elon Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” which has wreaked havoc on key services the government offers to the public. Without any congressional approval, President Trump created a new federal department and granted one individual, Elon Musk, sweeping powers over ever other executive agencies without any advice or consent of the Senate, violating the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution as well as the constitutional separation of powers.

DOGE has laid off essential government employees, withheld billions of dollars from critical programs, sold off key government real estate, and mined the personal data of countless Americans. These actions of Musk and DOGE threaten the financial and operational well-being of plaintiff states by disrupting billions of dollars in federal funding as well as eliminating critical staff and programs that states rely on for important partnerships and enforcement. DOGE’s unfettered access to wide swaths of sensitive data both endangers cybersecurity and erodes public trust. The states requested that the court require Musk to destroy any data that he had acquired through DOGE, prevent DOGE from accessing or altering any further data or data systems, and prohibit DOGE from issuing any orders related to government payments, property, contracts, employment, among others.

The judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction while the merits of the case are being litigated.

There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual…Empowering an unelected billionaire to access Americans’ private data, slash funding for federal student aid, stop payments to American farmers and dismantle protections for working families is not a sign of President Trump’s strength, but his weakness. Despite his claim to be operating under a mandate from the American people, the President seems afraid to get Congressional approval for his ‘move fast and break things’ approach to the Presidency. Attorney General Raúl Torrez