A program funded by 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is paying the salaries of lawyers who are farmed out to liberal state attorney general offices to pursue climate-based litigation — a compact critics say amounts to Bloomberg buying state law enforcement employees to advance his preferred political agenda.
The arrangement, which currently pays the salaries of Special Assistant Attorneys General (SAAGs) in 10 Democratic AG offices, is drawing new scrutiny now that Bloomberg is running for president. The New York University School of Law’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, which was started in 2017 with $5.6 million from Bloomberg’s nonprofit, hires mid-career lawyers as “research fellows” before providing them to state AGs where they assist in pursuing “progressive” policy goals through the courts.
“This is a fundamental question of ethics and who’s running our government,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, one of a handful of Republican attorneys general who have raised concerns about the Bloomberg-funded program. “When you actually get to place someone in under a specific agenda and then pay them and they’re within the office, that starts to call into question whether there are multiple masters within an attorney general office and that starts to really stink.”
Republican Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill also says he is concerned about how Bloomberg Philanthropies, NYU and state AG offices are cooperating.
“What’s problematic is the arrangement through which a private organization or individual can promote an overtly political agenda by paying the salaries of government employees,” he said.
According to its website, the NYU State Impact Center currently has attorneys placed in the AG offices for Washington, D.C., Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Oregon. The attorney general running each of those offices is a Democrat.
The NYU center was first announced in an August 2017 press release, noting that it was boosted with funding from “Bloomberg Philanthropies,” the informal name for Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc. According to the foundation’s 2017 IRS 990 form, the $5.6 million came in the form of one $2.8 million payment in 2017 and another to follow in 2018. The Bloomberg Family Foundation’s 990 forms are not available for 2018 or 2019, so it is unclear whether Bloomberg continued to fund the State Impact Center last year or if he has yet in 2020. – READ MORE
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