LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge co-led a 13-state, bipartisan coalition in filing a lawsuit Wednesday to protect the well-established authority of states to lower taxes for their citizens. The lawsuit argues that the federal government cannot force states to relinquish control of their taxing authority in return for much-needed economic aid related to COVID-19. The tax mandate provision in the latest COVID-19 spending bill bars states from lowering taxes in exchange for relief funds. The lawsuit explains this is one of the most egregious federal power grabs in the nation’s history.
“President Biden’s latest COVID spending bill blocks our state from reducing Arkansans’ tax burden,” said Attorney General Rutledge. “Biden, Harris and Pelosi don’t have the right to control Arkansas’s tax laws and the Constitution does not allow such blatant federal overreach.”
The complaint argues that the tax mandate provision could be used to claw back a share of Arkansas’s stimulus allotment. This creates an impermissible chilling effect on state lawmakers’ willingness to reduce the tax burdens on their citizens.
Before filing this lawsuit, members of the coalition asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to confirm the legislation would not strip states of their taxing authority. However, her response did not place any limits on the vague provision – uncertainty that she admits exists in referring to the ambiguity as a “thorny” issue in testimony to Congress.
Attorneys general filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Treasury, Secretary Yellen and the Department’s Acting Inspector General Richard K. Delmar, who would be responsible for seeking any potential claw back of federal funds.
The lawsuit attacks this unconstitutional exercise of federal power as violating the 10th Amendment, particularly the conditional spending doctrine and the anti-commandeering doctrine.
The attorneys general seek a court order that prohibits enforcement of the federal tax mandate and declares it unconstitutional.
Arkansas co-led the coalition with West Virginia and Alabama with support from Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.
About Attorney General Leslie Rutledge
Leslie Carol Rutledge is the 56th Attorney General of Arkansas. Elected on November 4, 2014, and sworn in on January 13, 2015, she is the first woman and first Republican in Arkansas history to be elected as Attorney General. She was resoundingly re-elected on November 6, 2018. Since taking office, she has significantly increased the number of arrests and convictions against online predators who exploit children and con artists who steal taxpayer money through Social Security Disability and Medicaid fraud. Further, she has held Rutledge Roundtable meetings and Mobile Office hours in every county of the State each year, and launched a Military and Veterans Initiative. She has led efforts to roll back government regulations that hurt job creators, fight the opioid epidemic, teach internet safety, combat domestic violence and make the office the top law firm for Arkansans. Rutledge serves as co-chairs of the National Association of Attorneys General Veterans Affairs Committee, re-established and co-chairs the National Association of Attorneys General Committee on Agriculture and was the former Chairwoman of the National Association of Attorneys General Southern Region. As the former Chairwoman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, she remains active on the Executive Board.
A native of Batesville, she is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Rutledge clerked for the Arkansas Court of Appeals, was Deputy Counsel for former Governor Mike Huckabee, served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Lonoke County and was an Attorney at the Department of Human Services before serving as Counsel at the Republican National Committee. Rutledge and her husband, Boyce, have one daughter. The family has a home in Pulaski County and a farm in Crittenden County.