Farm groups filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, after he hired an environmental prosecutor paid by outside funds.
The complaint, posted by Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), states that Kaul hired Karen Heineman last year as a special assistant attorney general to focus on prosecuting people and businesses violating the Badger State’s environmental regulations. Heineman’s position, however, is funded through the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University Law School, which was started in 2017 with a $5.6 million grant from Michael Bloomberg’s nonprofit.
Bloomberg is a climate activist and former mayor of New York City.
The aim of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center was to hire lawyers in blue states to push back against President Donald Trump’s deregulations in his first term, and the center is still funding these attorneys now.
The current lawsuit against the Wisconsin AG was filed by the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance, Venture Dairy Cooperative, and Lane Ruhland, a lawyer who has worked for Republicans in the past.
Kim Bremmer, executive director of the Venture Dairy Cooperative, told WPR that it was unconstitutional and unlawful for the state Department of Justice to have an agreement with the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, saying it denies due process and equal protection.
“If anyone could just privately fund an assistant attorney general position, then we all should be doing it,” Bremmer told the outlet.
Earlier this month, Republicans in Wisconsin proposed a bill that would prevent Kaul from hiring staff members using outside funds, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“Allowing out-of-state billionaires to instigate or control investigations or prosecutions of Wisconsinites is unacceptable,” Republicans wrote in a memo about the bill. “The Attorney General’s duty is to represent and serve the people of Wisconsin, not to accommodate the bidding and agenda of out-of-state billionaire partisan activists who buy their way into our DOJ offices.”
“I’m proud of the work the Wisconsin Department of Justice does to protect clean air and clean drinking water,” Kaul said in a statement to WPR. “With the harm that pollution causes in many communities across the state, better resourcing the enforcement of our environmental laws shouldn’t be controversial.”
Bremmer, however, told WPR that the “desirable outcome would be that this is ruled unconstitutional” so that this sort of funding scheme “doesn’t happen in the future … to try to keep as many agendas out of the DOJ as possible.”
The lawsuit aims to require Wisconsin’s Department of Justice to terminate its agreement with the SEEIC, eliminate any special assistant attorney general positions, and prohibit future arrangements to fund prosecutors this way.
Wisconsin is not the only state to fund leftist prosecutors through the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center. The website currently lists funded positions available in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Minnesota, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Connecticut. The website also previously noted that it funds attorneys in the AG offices of numerous states, including Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. – all states with Democrat control.
Republicans have raised concerns about the Bloomberg-funded initiative for years, with former West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey telling Fox News in 2020 that this was “a fundamental question of ethics and who’s running our government.”
“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,” Morrisey said at the time.
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[[{“value”:”
Farm groups filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, after he hired an environmental prosecutor paid by outside funds.
The complaint, posted by Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), states that Kaul hired Karen Heineman last year as a special assistant attorney general to focus on prosecuting people and businesses violating the Badger State’s environmental regulations. Heineman’s position, however, is funded through the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University Law School, which was started in 2017 with a $5.6 million grant from Michael Bloomberg’s nonprofit.
Bloomberg is a climate activist and former mayor of New York City.
The aim of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center was to hire lawyers in blue states to push back against President Donald Trump’s deregulations in his first term, and the center is still funding these attorneys now.
The current lawsuit against the Wisconsin AG was filed by the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance, Venture Dairy Cooperative, and Lane Ruhland, a lawyer who has worked for Republicans in the past.
Kim Bremmer, executive director of the Venture Dairy Cooperative, told WPR that it was unconstitutional and unlawful for the state Department of Justice to have an agreement with the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, saying it denies due process and equal protection.
“If anyone could just privately fund an assistant attorney general position, then we all should be doing it,” Bremmer told the outlet.
Earlier this month, Republicans in Wisconsin proposed a bill that would prevent Kaul from hiring staff members using outside funds, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“Allowing out-of-state billionaires to instigate or control investigations or prosecutions of Wisconsinites is unacceptable,” Republicans wrote in a memo about the bill. “The Attorney General’s duty is to represent and serve the people of Wisconsin, not to accommodate the bidding and agenda of out-of-state billionaire partisan activists who buy their way into our DOJ offices.”
“I’m proud of the work the Wisconsin Department of Justice does to protect clean air and clean drinking water,” Kaul said in a statement to WPR. “With the harm that pollution causes in many communities across the state, better resourcing the enforcement of our environmental laws shouldn’t be controversial.”
Bremmer, however, told WPR that the “desirable outcome would be that this is ruled unconstitutional” so that this sort of funding scheme “doesn’t happen in the future … to try to keep as many agendas out of the DOJ as possible.”
The lawsuit aims to require Wisconsin’s Department of Justice to terminate its agreement with the SEEIC, eliminate any special assistant attorney general positions, and prohibit future arrangements to fund prosecutors this way.
Wisconsin is not the only state to fund leftist prosecutors through the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center. The website currently lists funded positions available in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Minnesota, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Connecticut. The website also previously noted that it funds attorneys in the AG offices of numerous states, including Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. – all states with Democrat control.
Republicans have raised concerns about the Bloomberg-funded initiative for years, with former West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey telling Fox News in 2020 that this was “a fundamental question of ethics and who’s running our government.”
“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,” Morrisey said at the time.
“}]]
