Fourteen States Sue DOGE, Claim Musk is a ‘Designated Agent of Chaos’

A group of 14 states have sued DOGE and Elon Musk claiming that Musk is a “designated agent of chaos” given unlimited power to make them sad. Okay, that last part is made up but the rest is real. They are demanding that Musk be confirmed by the Senate.

 “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.

This is just one of three lawsuits aimed at DOGE which were filed today. Another one came from a nonprofit called the State Democracy Defenders Fund.

The State Democracy Defenders Fund, which filed its lawsuit with the firm Marziani, Stevens & Gonzalez, also argued that Mr. Musk wielded an “extraordinary amount of power” and that his actions had violated the Constitution’s appointments clause.

The plaintiffs are seeking to prevent Mr. Musk and his team from continuing their work until Mr. Musk is “properly appointed,” according to the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

If you’re curious about the group, it’s an anti-Trump group with Bill Kristol on the Board of Directors. Here’s their mission according to their website:

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will be a “dictator on day one.” Our American Autocracy Threat Tracker comprehensively catalogs all of Trump’s and his allies’ Project 2025 and other specific plans and promises. We also catalog potential bipartisan solutions to address the threat both now and should it come to pass in 2025. The full Threat Tracker is updated regularly.

The third lawsuit filed against DOGE today came from a group of Administrative Law Judges:

Administrative law judges claim that the potential disclosure of their personal information sought by the Department of Government Efficiency threatens their safety, in a lawsuit that joins a wave of actions seeking to disrupt the Trump administration’s efforts to pare back the federal workforce.

The Association of Administrative Law Judges — a union that represents 910 administrative law judges who adjudicate cases at the Social Security Administration — filed suit on Tuesday alongside several other unions that represent government workers.

The lawsuit, opens new tab, filed in a New York federal court, asks the court to stop DOGE, led by Trump ally Elon Musk, from accessing personal and employment records through the Office of Personnel Management, which functions as the federal government’s human resources department.

So it’s all out war on DOGE which is to be expected. Democrats want to stop the takedown of the bureaucracy they built and, if possible, force Musk into the Senate where they can put on a show and try to block his confirmation. We’ll have to wait and see what judges in DC, Maryland and New York wind up handling these cases and how quickly they announce nationwide restraining orders while they consider the various cases.