The Newsfeed: Interview with Attorney General Nick Brown, part 1

Washington’s 19th Attorney General, Nick Brown has joined or led more than 45 cases against the federal government during his first year in office.   

The suits come as the country grapples with economic pain from high prices influenced by tariffs and increasing domestic sweeps by ICE agents targeting and arresting immigrants.

Brown’s office has filed a series of lawsuits challenging the Trump Administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, threats to public school funding, environmental protections and several other issues. We sat down with Brown to talk about the motivation behind his work on these cases.

“I believe in the power of government to help people to, you know, make sure that we’re making this a better place to live for everyone here. But I think under no uncertain terms. We’re dealing with a President and an administration that consistently breaks the law, damages our founding principles as Americans, and really acts with malice towards the entire country,” said Brown.  

“When we see those things, it’s really important, for us as elected leaders, as community leaders, to push back against that. And, you know, I didn’t come into office hoping to sue the President as many times as we had. We’re now at, almost 50 cases that we’ve brought against the administration. But we only do that when we see harm being done to Washingtonians, in Washington institutions or agencies and when the President’s acting illegally.”

A page on his website specifically tracks the cases his office has taken in response to federal actions. More examples of those cases include challenging what Brown described as unlawful H-1B visa fees, cuts to SNAP benefits for lawful permanent residents, and the cancellation of the Solar for All program.

During our sit-down with Brown, he addressed the perception that his staff is doing more work aimed toward the federal government than it is focusing on work specific to Washington state. He says in actuality, only a fraction of lawyers in his office work on those cases.   

Brown says the Washington State AG’s Office is the second largest law firm on the West Coast with more than 830 lawyers in 13 offices across the state, but that only about 30 lawyers work on federal cases.  

“Every single case that we bring against the federal government is because of the impact of Washington. In my first year as the attorney general, we’ve protected $15 billion in cuts to Washington. That’s things that would have reduced education benefits to Washington, healthcare resources, environmental resources, climate protection. You know, we brought a lawsuit a few months ago challenging the administration’s illegal cuts to all of the Climate Resiliency Programs that we have here in Washington,” Brown said.

“Congress had passed that law and authorized money to the states and the President, because he doesn’t believe in climate change, cut that program. So we sued. We didn’t sue because it was a federal issue. We sued because it was a Washington issue.”  

Brown says that case in particular is timely as many areas in Washington are still dealing with severe December flooding in the state.  

“That lawsuit that we brought protected floodplains and coastal communities. And so when people say, you know, these are DC issues, that’s just nonsense. And in my sort of test, in every case that we bring against the government is, is the president doing something that’s illegal, or unconstitutional, and does it impact Washington? If it doesn’t impact Washington, we’re not involved,” he stressed.

Next week on The Newsfeed, we’ll bring you more from our conversation with Brown.