14 states sue DOGE, blasting Musk's 'unprecedented' power as unconstitutional [View all]
Fourteen states have filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, challenging Musk's role as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency and accusing him of being a "designated agent of chaos" whose "sweeping authority" is in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
"Musk's seemingly limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen, or a click of a mouse, would have been shocking to those who won this country's independence," reads the complaint, which was filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Led by the state of New Mexico, the lawsuit argues -- in often dramatic terms -- that the Appointments Clause of the Constitution calls for someone with such significant and "expansive authority" as Musk to be formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
"There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual," says the lawsuit, filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez and officials from Arizona, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, California, Nevada, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. "Although our constitutional system was designed to prevent the abuses of an 18th century monarch, the instruments of unchecked power are no less dangerous in the hands of a 21st century tech baron." Two of the 14 states are led by Republican governors.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawsuit-against-doge-14-states-203603702.html