By STEVE BRAWNER
Is the Arkansas attorney general a state office or a national one? Both.
That reality was demonstrated this week when Attorney General Tim Griffin filed lawsuits against two huge health care companies and a huge Chinese e-commerce company, while also being a part of a lawsuit that won a temporary injunction in court against the president of the United States.
Again, that was just this week.
The attorney general is state government’s chief lawyer whose office represents state entities when they are sued and also represents the state when criminals appeal their convictions.
But he or she also can go on offense. On Monday, Griffin announced he was filing suit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts and Optum, Inc. He accused them of contributing to the opioid epidemic.
Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, act as middlemen between insurance companies and pharmacists. They basically set the amounts that pharmacists will be reimbursed for each medication they dispense.
Griffin says the PBMs pushed highly addictive opioids and increased their profits when they should have been reading their own data and helping put the brakes on the epidemic. In 2016, 114.6 opioid prescriptions were dispensed for every 100 Arkansans.
On Tuesday, Griffin was back at his office lectern announcing he is suing Temu, the huge Chinese-owned online marketplace, for violating the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the Arkansas Personal Information Protection Act.
Griffin says Temu is actually more of a malware and spyware platform that’s masquerading as an e-commerce company. Its real business is selling users’ private information to third parties. The lawsuit says Temu’s phone app gives the company access to text messages, photos and even fingerprints. The app is also designed to evade user privacy settings.
The lawsuit notes that Temu is subject to Chinese laws that require it to cooperate with that country’s intelligence services. It also says Temu misrepresents the quality of its merchandise and that it targets children.
Temu said in an emailed response that the allegations are based on online misinformation, adding it would “vigorously defend” itself.
Temu is not the only Big Tech company Griffin is suing. Earlier this month, a Polk County circuit judge allowed parts of his lawsuit against Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, to proceed. Griffin says the company has misled the public about its social networks’ dangers and addictiveness.
Also this week, on Monday his office won at least a short-term victory as part of a seven-state federal lawsuit against President Biden’s SAVE student loan forgiveness plan. District Judge John Ross issued a temporary injunction preventing further loan forgiveness until he can decide the case. Another federal judge ruled against Biden that same day in a case brought by 11 other states.
Finally (for the purposes of this column), on May 7 Griffin and five other state attorneys general sued Biden’s Department of Education. The department has explicitly broadened its interpretation of Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination, to include gender identity in educational settings. The attorneys general say the new language will let biological males play girls’ and women’s sports and use women’s restrooms.
All of these legal actions by Griffin happened within a seven-week period.
Griffin, you may recall, at one time would have preferred to have another job – as governor. He switched races three years ago when now-Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced she was running.
It arguably wasn’t much of a step down. While the governor is undeniably the most important in-state official, an attorney general can play a large and direct role in setting national policy and affecting national life.
That’s particularly the case when a divided Congress struggles to pass even the most basic legislation and no longer effectively fills its constitutional role as a check and balance on the executive branch. To some degree, state attorneys general are stepping into that void.
Voters should keep all of this in mind whenever they elect an attorney general. It may not be at the top of the ballot, but it’s an important office – state and national – nonetheless.
Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 17 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.
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