ST. PAUL, Minn. (Legal Newsline) - Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office is seeking to replace one of two Special Assistant Attorney Generals (SAAGs), a spokesman from the AG's office confirmed Monday.
The Minnesota AG's use of SAAGs – which are privately funded by an outside organization - has attracted heavy criticism over ethics concerns.
Ellison’s office on Feb. 23 posted a job ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune seeking a new SAAG. According to the job description, the new hire will "serve as a fellow sponsored by the New York University School of Law State Energy & Environmental Impact Center." The listed salary range for the position is $99,000-$143,000.
The SAAG will be an employee of New York University but will work "solely under the discretion of the Office" of the Attorney General, the ad states.
The move comes as the Minnesota Senate State Government Finance and Policy and Elections Committee mulls passing a bill - SF2818, as amended - which is designed to put an end to the use of private funding of staffers in the AG's office.
As previously reported by Legal Newsline, the two SAAGs, Leigh Currie and Pete Surdo, were embedded in the office by the Rockefeller Family Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2019 for the purpose of advancing “progressive clean energy, climate, and environmental matters of regional and national importance."
Ellison's office did not confirm which of the two SAAGs will be replaced by the new hire. However, Currie's LinkedIn profile seems to indicate that she left her job at the AG's office in March 2022 after serving there for a total of two years and seven months. She lists her current role as a self-employed brief writer.
Pete Surdo's LinkedIn profile suggests that he continues to be employed by the Minnesota AG’s office.
In February, Currie withdrew as counsel from Ellison's lawsuit against energy companies for alleged climate harm. Public records show the suit was coordinated by the Rockefeller Family Fund in collaboration with local climate activists and law professor Alexandra Klass at the University of Minnesota.
Emails show that a memo pushing the suit was quietly written by "lawyers advising the Rockefeller family fund" using University stationery. The memo was kept aside until New York University's SEEIC - backed by funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies - provided the SAAGs, who then proceeded to file the suit.
Minnesota State Senate subcommittees heard arguments related to SF2818 - the bill that would put an end to the use of privately-funded SAAGs - on Feb. 9.
At the hearing, the legislative director in the AG office, Lauren Taken-Holtze - who served as the witness for the AG office - admitted to attending the hearing unprepared to discuss the details of the bill that would bar the AG's office from being able to hire employees paid for by outside groups.
“In regards to this bill, I am not prepared to comment on the reasoning, origins, or contexts, such as the assertion of non profit payments, because I only just heard it today," she said at the hearing.
Taken-Holtze even went so far as to claim that she was not aware of the fact that outside funding from a nonprofit organization was being used to pay the salaries of the SAAGs.
“I want to be clear. I can’t accept the assertion that there is any non-profit money coming in," she said at one point during the hearing.
Critics pointed out that the scene was perplexing, especially given that Taken-Holtze was sent to represent that state's top law enforcement office - which is staffed by lawyers. State offices employ legislative aides who track and review legislation that could impact them.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, sponsor of SF2818, criticized the AG's office for refusing to comply with the state's data practice law and lambasted Taken-Holtze's ill-informed statements.
“The Bloomberg-funded [SAAGs] around the country are refusing to produce documents in response to data practice requests in over 35 matters involved in activist attorneys general in other states. As we are hearing today, a representative of the Attorney General’s office on this very topic did not come prepared to give information to this committee which has authority in this area," Kiffmeyer said during the hearing.
Kiffmeyer repeated her criticism following the AG's posting of a job opening for the position of SAAG, merely two weeks after Taken-Holtze claimed to be unaware of the details of the position.
"It's frustrating that the Attorney General's office was not prepared to respond in committee while presumably, they were also working to circumvent the legislature with the posting of another Special Assistant Attorney General job opening," Kiffmeyer told Legal Newsline. "The whole point of the bill was to bring transparency into the Attorney General's hiring of SAAGs, so it feels like Ellison and his office is trying to pull a fast (one) on the legislature. It's a really sad state of affairs when the Executive Branch decides to play these kinds of games with the Senate."
Annette Meeks, CEO of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, echoed Kiffmeyer's frustration.
"It boggles my mind why Attorney General Ellison sent a, in her own words, 'wholly unprepared,' staff member to an important state senate committee hearing," Meeks told Legal Newsline. "Perhaps [Ellison] was too busy preparing to hire another Special Assistant Attorney General rather than brief his own staff member, but it was an embarrassing moment for the state's chief law enforcement officer."
SAAGs funded by NYU's State Energy & Environmental Impact Center are currently working on climate litigation in 11 states. The arrangement - which allows private organizations to place attorneys in state government offices - has been highly controversial, leading to calls for the practice to be banned on the legislative level.
Minnesota is not the only state considering ending the practice. In Virginia, the state's General Assembly is set to adopt, for the third time, a prohibition to prevent the use of Bloomberg-funded SAAGs. Both the state's House and Senate have included language in their budgets to uphold the ban through 2024.
In Minnesota, Kiffmeyer emphasized that the bill designed to block the hiring of privately-funded SAAGs would not limit the power of the AG's office. Instead, it is strictly intended to reign in outside sources of funding for the AG's office, she said.
Kiffmeyer also expressed a willingness to collaborate with the AG's office to ensure that the wording of the legislation is as clear as possible.
The AG office's witness, Taken-Holtze, agreed at the end of the hearing to respond to the Committee with written replies to the questions she was unable to answer.
The committee approved the bill on a vote of 5-3.