This week, the Minnesota Senate’s State Government Finance and Policy and Elections Committee advanced legislation that would prevent privately paid outside lawyers from working in the state attorney general’s office.

Legal Newsline reported:

“The Minnesota State Senate on Wednesday advanced a bill designed to limit the hiring by the Attorney General’s office of outside attorneys who could be politically motivated by the nonprofits and agencies that provide them.

“In another example, billionaire Michael Bloomberg and his Family Foundation donated $5.6 million to develop a New York University School of Law, State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, which placed 11 special assistants in state attorneys general offices, including Minnesota.”

As EID Climate has noted before, Attorney General Keith Ellison currently employees two Special Assistant Attorneys General (SAAGs) who are not Minnesota state government employees, but rather have been placed in the Ellison’s office by the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU Law School, which also pays their salaries. The center was started in 2017 thanks to a $5.6 million grant from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the arrangement has drawn intense criticism for allowing privately-funded organizations to gain a foothold in taxpayer-funded state government offices to carry out particular agenda.

Read the full blog at EIDClimate.org.