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How Nevada's Democratic attorney general is preparing to take on the Trump administration

The Nevada attorney general said Trump has the right to enact his policies, but plans to sue if those efforts are unconstitutional.
Gabby Birenbaum
Gabby Birenbaum
CourtsGovernmentState Government
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In his first two years as Nevada’s attorney general, Aaron Ford tangled with then-President Donald Trump 33 times.

The Democrat joined lawsuits with other Democratic attorneys general challenging the Trump administration’s declaration of a national emergency to construct the border wall, a rule expanding the ability of health care providers to deny services based on their religious beliefs and its attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census.

Ford, now in the last two years of his second — and final — term as attorney general, is gearing up to face the Trump administration again. It’s a different scene than his first go-around; a more conservative Supreme Court has upended legal precedent on abortion, affirmative action and deference to federal agencies. 

Ford is one of 11 Democratic attorneys general who was in office during the last Trump administration — none of whom were there during the first two years for the initial landmark legal battles regarding policies such as the travel ban and family separation. And he’s one of only two Democratic attorneys general who serve simultaneously with a Republican governor, setting up some potentially contentious situations — especially given his interest in running for governor in 2026.

In an interview with The Nevada Independent last week, Ford was clear that he would respect the mandate Trump has to govern.

“To the victor goes the spoils,” Ford said. “He has the ability to implement his policies in a way that is lawful and legal, pursuant to his [campaign] platform promises. And to the extent they are lawful and legal, he won't hear from the attorney general of Nevada.”

He also named several areas in which he hopes to collaborate with the incoming Trump administration, including stopping drug, guns and sex trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border.

But given the frequency and success Democratic attorney generals had in challenging the first Trump administration — Democratic AGs had an 83 percent success in court — they’re gearing up for more legal fights.

“He has a penchant for violating the law,” Ford said. “And to the extent he violates the law, whether it's constitutional or otherwise, I will meet him in court.”

Choosing battles

Democratic attorneys general have spent months preparing legal strategies in case of a Trump return to power, with a specific emphasis on abortion, immigration and environmental standards. Ford said the familiarity between Democratic attorneys general dates back years, and that their long-standing working relationships will allow them to coordinate and collaborate on responses to the Trump administration’s moves.

The effort is already underway. On Wednesday, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced a motion (joined by Ford and other Democratic attorneys general) to preemptively defend a Biden administration rule allowing people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to access private health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. That rule is currently being challenged by red state attorneys general, but is in effect in Nevada. With the Trump administration unlikely to defend Biden era rules, Ford and others are likely to take up the mantle of their legal defense.

Though the Democratic success rate was high during the first Trump administration, new precedents established by the Supreme Court on a variety of issues as well as a federal judiciary shaped by Trump has changed the contours of the law — and Trump and his team are expected to have a better understanding of the law and government than they did as political newcomers in 2017. Numerous Democratic lawsuits were won because of  weaknesses in the legal strategy the Trump administration pursued to defend its policies rather than on the constitutionality of the policy itself — the lawsuit about adding a citizenship question to the U.S. Census being a prime example.

Ford noted that the Supreme Court’s changed opinions can cut both ways. Democrats were furious in 2024 when the court overturned its 1984 ruling that gave deference to federal agencies in their interpretations of law in instances where Congress was unspecific or ambiguous. Known as the Chevron deference, the court ruled last year that courts, rather than agency personnel, should decide how unclear or ambiguous laws passed by Congress should be interpreted, even in highly technical cases. 

The impacts of the decision are likely to be enormous. But Ford said that Democratic attorneys general are ready to use the new precedent to argue that conservative implementation of laws — for example, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency potentially seeking to lower emissions standards — is inconsistent with the new legal framework unless specifically authorized by Congress.

“To the extent that [they] delegate something to an administrative agency that violates the new state of the law relative to agency deference, he will be met in court,” Ford said.

Mass deportation

One area that Democratic attorneys general expect to tangle with Trump is on his pledge to conduct a mass deportation operation. Ford said he supports the goal of removing violent criminals from the country but has concerns about the scope and nuances of a mass deportation operation.

He does not want unpredictable Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in schools, hospitals, judicial buildings or religious institutions, saying it would infringe on students, patients, victims of crimes and worshippers’ rights. 

“If it's about going to prisons and deporting those who are arrested for committing crimes, I'm all for it,” he said. “That's not an issue … it’s the nuances of those [strategies] that I think we should be focusing on and addressing.”

His legal strategy, therefore, will depend on how the Trump administration decides to pursue deportation. Trump is entitled to pursue his preferred immigration policies, Ford said, so long as it does not infringe on any Nevadans’ constitutional rights. 

Nevada has neither sanctuary nor non-sanctuary laws prohibiting or mandating local and state law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officers. Republicans have already begun highlighting Ford’s support for a 2017 immigration bill that would have barred state and local law enforcement from participating in federal immigration enforcement without a warrant. Ford was a cosponsor of the bill, but scuttled a hearing and helped block it from advancing. 

Ford noted that because immigration is a federal issue, any federal efforts concerning immigration in Nevada should be paid for by the federal government.

“That doesn't make Nevada a sanctuary state,” Ford said. “It makes it sovereign. And as long as I'm attorney general, I'm going to protect Nevada's sovereignty from federal overreach.”

Divided state government

Ford isn’t the only Nevada politician with jurisdiction over how the state responds to federal programs. Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo attended a meeting of Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago in mid-January to discuss how states can best assist Trump, and signed a joint statement with other Republican governors in December announcing his readiness to deploy the Nevada National Guard and state law enforcement as part of the mass deportation campaign. 

But Lombardo’s approach may be hesitant; in comments after his State of the State address, he said mass deportation is “not what I believe is an appropriate policy.” And he added that expanding the federal capacity to detain and deport more undocumented immigrants, including potentially reviving a program to deputize local law enforcement entities, will take “an exorbitant amount of time.”

While Ford, as attorney general, has his own power, he and Lombardo — potential rivals in the 2026 gubernatorial race — could find themselves at loggerheads about how to engage with the Trump administration. 

The governor cannot stop the attorney general from suing the federal government even if he agrees with the policy — former Gov. Brian Sandoval and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt had a famously frosty relationship regarding Laxalt’s decision to sue the Obama administration over its DACA expansion, despite Sandoval’s support of the program and both men being Republican. 

And in other states, governors and attorneys general have occasionally sued one another in instances where the attorney general declined to defend the governor’s position in a lawsuit or the attorney general felt the governor had violated the law. In Maine, for example, a Republican governor sued a Democratic attorney general during the first Trump administration because the attorney general refused to join a lawsuit supporting Trump’s travel ban.

But despite Ford being one of only four attorneys general who serve with a governor of a different party, he said he does not expect his job to change.

“[My role] is to give advice to the clients of my state, which include the governor, [and] to ensure that the Constitution, the rule of law, is upheld,” he said. “That doesn't change based on who's in office at the presidential level or at the gubernatorial level.”

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