John Locher / AP
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford speaks during an interview, Friday, Dec. 14, 2018, in Las Vegas.
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019 | 2 a.m.
CARSON CITY — Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford says he has a simple test to determine whether the state should either instigate or join legal action against the Trump administration.
If an administration’s action hurts Nevada families, he says, it’s time to go to court.
So far, that test has led to Ford entering Nevada into lawsuits involving the Affordable Care Act, birth control and the border wall in less than two months on the job.
And that’s likely to just be the beginning.
On Monday, Ford sat down with the Sun to discuss some of those suits, as well as topics being discussed across the street from the attorney general’s office at the Nevada Legislature. Ford knows the legislative process well and is watching the 2019 session closely, having served as Senate minority and majority leader.
Edited excerpts of the conversation follow.
Why did you feel it was important for Nevada to join the lawsuit against Trump’s emergency declaration for the border wall?
We have to protect our interests. You've heard members of our congressional delegation say that nearly $100 million of military spending might be diverted to the wall.
That's military housing. That's funds for military families. And in addition to that, we've heard from law enforcement that no one from the administration reached out to talk about how diverting drug interdiction funds from our activities would affect us.
So there are some Nevada-specific interests that we had to protect, and that's why we filed as a part of this lawsuit.
Critics of the suit, including Trump, say it’s politically motivated and is coming from open-border Democrats. What’s your response to that?
I'll remind them what I've always said: The first thing I look at when we entertain issues is how is this affecting Nevada families, including military families.
I'm not looking at this through a partisan eye. If it didn't have an effect on us, I wouldn't be participating. But it does have an effect, and that's why I'm involved.
You mentioned military families and drug interdiction. Is protection for immigrant communities also part of your motivation with this?
The direct impact, obviously, is the monetary impact that I was talking about. But sure, we know that our president has issues that sometimes cross the line, but at the absolute minimum border on racism, so we're trying to address some of these issues with that in mind as well. That's something I'll keep an eye on, because again we have Nevada families who've been here from three generations to three months, and they're important to us.
Same question for joining the lawsuit to block the administration from rescinding the ACA mandate requiring employers to cover birth control in health insurance plans: Why did you feel it was important for Nevada to be part of it?
One of my primary areas of focus is on protecting constitutional and civil rights. And a woman's right to her reproductive health and freedom — and to do with her body what she pleases — is one of those rights we're going to be protecting. We view this as an overt attempt at undermining that right.
Are you looking at suits in other areas? Do you anticipate more coming?
Knowing this president, the short answer is yes. Past is prologue and the proof is in the pudding. You've seen the types of things in which he's engaged and the types of things he's tried to undermine. Again, the first question will always be, how is a presidential action affecting Nevada families? And if it's a negative effect, if we have a cause of action we'll be waging it.
What’s on your legislative wish list?
Our office, before I assumed the title of attorney general, had already submitted 20 bills to the Legislature — that's the amount allocated to the attorney general every session. We looked at those bills, some of which we will not be pursuing, others of which we will. Some we'll be pursuing under different parameters.
The ones that are off the table, these aren't controversial, I wouldn't say. They're just not priorities at this juncture. Some of them are unnecessary because sometimes there's an overlap with what the Legislature is already doing with another bill.
We have priorities we're going to focus on relative to sex trafficking and sexual assault, and domestic violence.
Do you like what you saw from the “Nevada Blueprint” (the Nevada Democrats’ outline of objectives and priority policy items for the session)?
I'm proud of the agenda that the Senate Democrats and the Assembly Democrats have put forward. The Nevada Blueprint is something I started when I was the (Senate) minority leader in 2015 and continued in 2017, so I'm glad to see that this missive to our constituents is being continued.
I quoted one of your competitors in saying that in 2017, even with a Republican governor, we were able to accomplish a lot with Nevada Blueprint 2.0, and I'm excited to see the types of things that can be done under a Democratic governor in version 3.0.
One item that’s already been checked off is passage of universal background checks on gun purchases. Are you anticipating having to defend that one in court?
I would not be surprised if opponents to these common-sense background checks filed a lawsuit to stop them from being implemented. So yes.
Are you confident it's solid?
Yes, I think it's solid. Frankly, I thought the ballot initiative was solid. I thought there were ways to have that implemented that were not pursued, and some arguments that were waged that were not the most appropriate. We're still in litigation at this juncture, so that's probably the limit to which I can talk about that.
How would a challenge work? Would it have to be filed after the background checks are implemented?
Without getting into too much minutiae on legal analysis, there is a concept of ripeness — that before you sue on something it has to be effective. So maybe what's being considered vis a vis that type of lawsuit being waged is waiting until it becomes effective, because otherwise the courts really have nothing to consider. But they may file what we call a declaratory action beforehand, and who knows how that would play into it. That's a procedural strategy, and tactically we'll have to consider how we'd respond to that.
Do you support the private prison ban? Will you be testifying in favor of it?
We'll see (about testifying), but obviously I supported it during the last go-around, and I don't think the bill is substantively any different than it was beforehand. So yes, I support the notion of ensuring that private prisons aren't making profits off prisoners.
Why do you oppose private prisons?
There's a treatise I can write on the history of ways in which states and private industries have made profits off prisons that date back to before the Jim Crow era. But as a general matter, this notion of a company making a profit off prisoners is one that offends me. And second, but not in order of priority, is that if the state is going to imprison folks, then the state should be paying for the facility that imprisons them.
But opponents of the ban say the state needs to keep contracting with private prisons to provide short-term flexibility options to deal with overcrowding. What’s your response to that concern?
We need to figure it out within the current system.
Can it be figured out in the current system?
You're asking something that, I think, straddles the line between legally what might be argued and legislatively what might be considered. From a policy perspective, the Legislature when I was the Senate majority leader considered this an issue that needed to be addressed with state funds as opposed to being handed off to private prisons.
