Arizona will sue Trump administration for 10th time, attorney general says at town hall
Stacey Barchenger- Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Rep. Greg Stanton held a town hall in Mesa to address concerns about the Trump administration.
- Mayes, who has already filed nine lawsuits against the Trump administration, announced her intent to file a 10th lawsuit. She would not confirm what the focus of the suit would be.
- Mayes and Stanton vowed to continue challenging the Trump administration's actions through legal channels and congressional opposition.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes foreshadowed her office's 10th lawsuit against the Trump administration during a town hall in Mesa that allowed Arizonans hours to air their concerns about the leadership of the country.
The Democratic attorney general and Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., drew a crowd of a couple hundred people on April 3. The gathering was the latest of a string of public events each has held to highlight their work to stand up to President Donald Trump, whose first months in office have brought sweeping funding and workforce cuts in the name of government efficiency.
Mayes has filed nine lawsuits against the Trump administration, the most recent challenging an elections-related order, which came just hours before she spoke to the crowd in Mesa.
"By tomorrow night there will be a 10th," she promised, drawing applause.
Asked after the event, Mayes would not confirm what the focus of her latest lawsuit would be. But she said her office was looking at action on Trump's cuts to smaller agencies, including one that supports museums and libraries.
"What we saw tonight was a tremendous show of opposition to what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing to this country," Mayes said.
Mayes and Stanton pledged to counter Trump in the courts and in Congress, respectively. Mayes said it would take three things.
"Crowds, we got that covered,” she said to the overflowing room. “It’s about courts, I’m trying to have that covered, and it’s about courage."
With those three things, "they can’t stop us," Mayes said.
Reach of Trump administration cuts on display at town hall
Questions from Arizonans gathered at the event highlighted the reach of the Trump administration's cuts, with several people asking what they could do in the face of such sweeping change. A mental health counselor asked how she could support clients feeling overwhelmed.
Donna Gifford, of Ahwatukee, stood to speak, emotion choking her voice.
"This is me having courage," she said. She said her daughter was furloughed from her firm, which worked for the United States Agency for International Development, and expected to lose her job.
“I’d like to know if you think we can ever recover from the loss of soft diplomacy?” Gifford asked.
Stanton warned that the U.S. pulling back on aid to other nations allowed adversaries like China to step in. He said the U.S. has stepped back from disaster aid, noting the earthquake that killed thousands in Myanmar.
"The decimation of USAID — if you support the United States being the strongest country in the world, I do — that’s one of the most self-defeating things he could have done,” Stanton said, adding the nation has no choice "once we have new leadership in the White House to rebuild our system of alliances that is being destroyed right now."
Gifford said later that she felt heard. "I feel like it matters to be here," she said, "like it matters that I spoke."
Christal Cline, of Mesa, asked whether Trump could stay in office by suspending elections. Cline is a Democrat and said she has been a poll worker since 2020.
"I would like to have more specifics on how we could prevent him declaring a national emergency and suspending elections," she said. "I’d like if it didn’t depend on the Supreme Court."
Mayes said Trump’s election order, against which she and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes filed suit earlier on April 3, was the president’s "first step to try to essentially seize control of state elections."
She expressed support for the nation's top court while acknowledging fears among Democrats that the Trump-appointed justices, who bolstered the court's conservative majority, might side with the president.
"I still believe in them, I do. It’s going to come down to them, and then after that all of us potentially," Mayes said. If Trump tries to defy elections, "we will take it to the United States Supreme Court and then we will find out whether the United States Supreme Court believes in America."
'This was a political rally'
Mayes has made community listening sessions a regular feature of her time in office, and participated in four such events related to the Trump administration prior to the Mesa gathering. Two of those included other states' attorneys general in a national tour that began in Phoenix on March 5. Mayes then went to Minnesota for a second event at a taxpayer-funded travel cost of $870, according to her office. Next week, she plans to travel to Oregon for another session.
Stanton likewise has joined public education advocates, union representatives and others to decry federal funding cuts. The congressman has objected to cuts that could threaten semiconductor manufacturing or infrastructure projects that are a longtime in the making, like the widening of Interstate 10 south of Phoenix.
The Democratic duo pledged to stand in the way of Trump's orders and efforts to trim government.
"If this president thinks that the United States of America is ... by flooding the zone with all of these illegal acts, falling comfortably numb into authoritarianism, he’s got another thing coming," Stanton said.
Not all who attended the Mesa event oppose the president, however. One man wore a Make America Great Again hat. Next to him sat Sonny Allison of Mesa, a registered Republican.
"This was a political rally, this was not a town hall," he said. "I'm grateful that he had this, but I'd appreciate more of a town hall setting as opposed to a political rally."
Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669