The Old Blog in the Desert

Well, well, well—what have we here? Another lawsuit from the great state of Nevada flung like a well-worn horseshoe at the ever-stoic post of Washington bureaucracy. One wonders if Attorney General Aaron Ford is getting bulk discounts on legal filings.

Is this the 23,000th suit since January? Who’s keeping count? Certainly not the clerks in his office—they’re too busy sharpening their pencils for the next one.

This time, Nevada joins a chorus of twenty-three states and the District of Columbia in hollering at the federal government over what they claim is an unlawful axing of nearly $12 billion in public health grants. At the center of the ruckus is Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services, who, according to Ford’s office, have wielded the budgetary scythe with reckless abandon, leaving state health agencies in a sorry state of distress.

For its part, Nevada could lose a tidy $35 million meant for the State Public Health Laboratory, with further damage rippling out to universities and nonprofits. In his official statement, Ford did not mince words, declaring the decision to be a grave affront to the well-being of Nevadans and vowing to see it undone in court.

The lawsuit seeks an emergency restraining order to halt the cuts and a declaration that the terminations were, in fact, unlawful. Whether the courts will see it that way or tell Nevada and its fellow litigants to sit in the corner remains to be seen.

If lawsuits were a commodity, Nevada’s stock would be soaring.