Lawmakers in the Golden State are so worried about the future actions of President-elect Donald Trump that they have recruited a former U.S. attorney general to help deal with them. Incredibly, the California Legislature has chosen former Attorney Gen. Eric Holder “to serve as outside counsel to advise the state’s legal strategy against the incoming administration.”
Via the L.A. Times:
The unusual arrangement will give Holder, leading a team of attorneys from the firm Covington & Burling, a broad portfolio covering potential conflicts between California and the federal government.
“He will be our lead litigator, and he will have a legal team of expert lawyers on the issues of climate change, women and civil rights, the environment, immigration, voting rights — to name just a few,” Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) said in an interview.
It’s not clear why California’s new attorney general, Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra, has not been deemed fit for the job, as it would normally fall under his purview. Becerra is replacing former Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, who now serves in the U.S. Senate.
It’s also not clear why the California legislature thinks they’re going to get any sound legal advice from a guy whose record with the Supreme Court was historically abysmal.
As Obama’s attorney general, Holder racked up twenty humiliating 9-0 losses in the Supreme Court, and even more if you include cases in which the administration filed an amicus brief.
“Typically, the Justice Department does very well before the Supreme Court. Holder has made that a losing record,” John Fund and Hans Von Spakovsky wrote in The New Yorker in July of 2014 after Holder had reached that dubious milestone.
That’s because, as legal scholar Ilya Shapiro says, the administration has “relied on outlandish legal theories that pushed a constitutional interpretation of extreme federal power.”
Holder and Obama have argued that we as Americans don’t have the right to free speech, the right to privacy, the right to due process or the freedom of religion.
Apparently, this failed record of government overreach is exactly what California Democrats are looking for.
Here’s a Washington Free Beacon “Supercut” of Holder’s finest moments as Obama’s attorney general:
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