Conservative AGs Threatens to Sue Nonprofit for Being Woke

The right side media — led by WSJ and Fox News — continue to stoke the fears educated and uneducated Bubbas have of everything woke.  Here is how WSJ’s editorial board talked about the infighting going on at the National Association of Attorneys General:

A political dispute inside the National Association of Attorneys General is revealing some unsavory practices that deserve more public exposure. One question is whether Republican AGs are willing to walk away if the group won’t shape up.

NAAG—no acronym jokes, please—describes itself as the national forum for AGs from the states and U.S. territories. It is supposed to be nonpartisan, but it has been steering left. One sign of this trend is the group’s close ties with trial lawyers, who bring tort cases on behalf of the AGs and then give some of the settlement proceeds to NAAG. Those proceeds have become a fund that then finances more tort cases.

Fox News, in an online article entitled “AG threatens to sue nonprofit accused of going woke” said this:

The [NAAG] has heavily invested in companies that promote economic policies known as ESG (environmental, social and governance) that conservatives claim are used by the left as a social credit score to force businesses and financial institutions to adopt progressive ideologies across the globe.

Kansas Republican AG Kris Kobach, a member of NAAG’s executive committee, sent a letter to the taxpayer-funded organization last month to demand answers on investments with companies like BlackRock that promote ESG and, according to Kobach, “destroy shareholder value in pursuit of faddish ideological aims, often without proper disclosure to investors.”

“NAAG may not have a policy affirmatively endorsing ESG, but actions speak louder than words, and they have invested millions of dollars in funds linked to ESG initiatives,” Knudsen told Fox News Digital.  NAAG recently agreed to suspend dues paid by the states with taxpayer money after Republican attorneys general began pulling out or threatening to pull out of the organization. Critics said leadership has been pushing “woke” programming and mismanaging its share of legal settlements

And here is how Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s first ever African American Attorney General, described the problem:

Third, we write to bring to your attention a trend that is antithetical to NAAG’s mission as a bipartisan organization: increasingly partisan programming and the seeming exclusion of conservative members in favor of more liberal ones. This concern directly ties to the above concerns, as NAAG operates three “fund committees” that administer millions of dollars of settlement proceeds. To access these monies, state attorneys general must submit grant applications to the fund committees, which the committees then review. Republican attorneys general serve on these committees but are in the minority on two of the three committees, both of which control vast amounts of settlement dollars. That partisan divide has had real and serious consequences for our states. As you know, there are reports of fund committees constructively barring Republicans from the application processes, while these same committees appropriate settlement dollars to fund left-wing programming. Furthermore, fund committees are now issuing grants that are more like loans than grants. Of course, loans must be repaid, which incentivizes states to pursue litigation for a financial return, regardless of whether such litigation is justified. The result is NAAG’s promotion of “entrepreneurial litigation” and “suing businesses for profit,” all of which is “more in line with the plaintiffs’ bar” than making whole those who have been harmed.

So it looks like this whole thing, the fight between conservative AGs, including Florida’s Ashley Moody, and the NAAG is heading to court in an effort to greenmail NAAG away from causes and positions considered too woke.  Austin Knudsen, Montana’s AG is threatening to sue the NAAG if it doesn’t disburse Montana’s share of settlement proceeds from opioid litigation.  Here is an excerpt from his demand letter:

Over the last six-plus months, the disheartening revelations about NAAG have confirmed the wisdom of extricating Montana from NAAG activities. We all saw the news that NAAG lost $37 million or more last year on a coterie of esoteric investments in private equity and foreign stocks.1 We have seen NAAG spend money on trips to Europe for member AGs and their families.2 And now we have learned that, while states like Montana are pushing back against the use of ESG in so many other areas of our citizens’ lives, NAAG is investing its money in ESG-linked investments.3 That is patently unacceptable. On top of this damning evidence of daily mismanagement, I have also recently come into possession of tax documents and other internal documents that call NAAG’s entire financial structure into question. From what I have seen, it appears the entire NAAG arrangement is premised on a series of arrangements that do not square with the law in Montana, or maybe in any other state.

. . . 

There is no doubt in my mind now that NAAG is an unreliable and improper financial steward, and that Montana’s share of the money at NAAG needs to come home. Return the money in your accounts that belongs to Montana within 90 days or I will go to court and sue to ensure that the money is safely and legally brought back within the four corners of Montana law.

I really doubt the Right AGs seriously think they can yank their “share” of opioid settlement money from NAAG.  The settlement was approved by a court in New York and it would take a whole lot of re-litigation to make that happen.  And I hope they understand that the potential plaintiffs are gonna have to sue a whole gaggle of AG’s.  But I don’t know, I am just speculating.  Meanwhile, I sure feel safer that there is a constituency out there fighting to protect me  protected from wokeness.  Like African American history, women’s right to privacy, and gender identity.  

darryll jones