ST. PAUL, Minn. (Legal Newsline) - The Minnesota Attorney General race is heating up after all three Republican candidates announced they would immediately fire two Special Assistants Attorneys General (SAAGs) currently serving under Democrat Attorney General Keith Ellison.
The candidates' declarations, which were made during a televised debate on March 31, come after the Minnesota State Senate recently advanced a bill that would limit the ability of the AG’s office to hire attorneys funded by outside sources.
"On day one after I'm elected and sworn in, those attorneys are fired," said "political outsider" candidate Jim Shultz, in a reference to the SAAGs, during the debate. "It has to happen. We don't privately fund litigation in our state. We don't privately fund climate actors with conflicts of interest in our AG offices or anywhere else for that matter."
Candidate Doug Wardlow, former state representative who lost election to Ellison in 2018, echoed Schultz's assertions.
"The two Special Assistants Attorneys General that have been appointed by Keith Ellison, whose salaries are being paid for by Michael Bloomberg, they were planted there as part of this program in order to push a radical left environmental agenda," Wardlow said. "I'm going to fire those two SAAGs, and everyone - it goes without saying - will be paid for, and their salaries will be paid for by the state of Minnesota."
Finally, Tad Jude, a former state judge, argued that it "makes no sense" for the SAAGs to be allowed to continue working for the AG office because they are accountable to Bloomberg and the NYU School of Law rather than to the taxpayers of Minnesota.
"The attorney general's office will not be for sale when I'm attorney general. Hyper-partisanship will stop. The special interest attorneys will be gone," he said.
As previously reported by Legal Newsline, records show the two SAAGs were embedded in Ellison’s office by the New York University State Environmental Impact Center (SEEIC) through funding provided by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg. The hires played a key role in carrying out litigation against Exxon Mobil and other fossil fuel companies, including the American Petroleum Institute.
In a major suit launched by his office in 2020, Ellison accused Big Oil of committing fraud by misleading Minnesotans about truths related to climate change.
Publicly available information shows that the suit was part of a nationally orchestrated campaign initiated by the left-leaning Rockefeller Family Foundation and "attorneys advising the family foundation." According to emails obtained by a government watchdog group, the said attorneys were involved in the ghostwriting of a memo that formed the basis of the suit.
That memo was held until Bloomberg's SAAGs were embedded in Ellison's office and could file the suit, the emails also show.
While the hiring of these SAAGs was controversial enough to spur legislative efforts to ban the practice in the state, Ellison has shown no apparent interest in changing course. In February, his office posted a job ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune seeking to hire another 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 ad states that the selected candidate will be employed by NYU School of Law but will work “solely under the discretion” of the Minnesota Attorney General.
Nonetheless, efforts to ban the practice of hiring such SAAGs in Minnesota appear to be gaining ground.
On Monday, SF 2818 – legislation that would effectively make it illegal for the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office to use outside attorneys - was heard before the State Government Finance and Policy and Elections committee. The measure has been rolled into an omnibus bill and is slated to be voted on later this week. It will head to the Senate floor if it passes.
Similar legislation has been adopted in Virginia, where the state’s General Assembly passed a bill that outright bans the use of Bloomberg-funded SAAGs.
Ellison responded to the push to implement SF 2818 by sending a letter sent to the Senate on Monday. In it, he argued that "there is no such thing [as] "Bloomberg-funded" attorneys in the Minnesota Attorney General's Office.
"There are two attorneys in the Attorney General’s Office, out of approximately 135 in the Office, whose placement contracts — which are public documents that we have disclosed on numerous occasions — state clearly and unequivocally that they are 'under the direction and control of, and owe a duty of loyalty to, the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General,'" Ellison wrote.
He then went on to mount a lengthy defense of the SAAGs, saying they "have repeatedly and loyally served the State and the people of Minnesota on critically important matters."
Ellison did not, however, deny that the salaries of the two SAAGs are paid for by a New York University School of Law program backed by Michael Bloomberg.
Should SF 2818 fail to pass, questions remain as to whether or not the current SAAGs could still be fired if one of the Republican Attorney General candidates prevails in the upcoming election.
A contract between NYU School of Law and the Minnesota Attorney General's Office states that the hires can indeed be terminated. However, according to the terms, NYU also has the right to wage a legal battle if it believes the Minnesota Attorney General did not first seek to resolve its differences with the SAAGs.
"The Office of the Minnesota Attorney General may terminate the services of the Legal Fellow at its discretion for any reason upon seven (7) days’ written notice to the State Impact Center, provided that the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General will attempt to resolve any performance or other issues involving the Legal Fellow with the Legal Fellow and the State Impact Center before terminating the services of the Legal Fellow," the contract states.
It is nonetheless plausible that an incoming Republican Attorney General could assign tasks to the SAAGs that contradict their climate aims.
In an April 4 post at Climate Litigation Watch, "Minnesota AG Race Becomes Interesting Thanks to Participation in Bloomberg 'SAAGs' Scheme," the author posits that a "clever Republican candidate promising to fire the Bloomberg SAAGs might promise, in the alternative, that he would assign the environmental activist attorneys to work on getting those stalled nickel and copper mining operations in the northern part of the state permitted. That might quickly inform the question of who the SAAGs really worked for."
The primary election is Aug. 9.