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Fourteen states sued President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Thursday, February 13, alleging that the department's efforts to slash government spending are "unconstitutional."
Knewz.com has learned that the state of New Mexico is leading the coalition of the 14 states filing the suit.
It has been reported that the coalition includes Arizona, Michigan, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, in addition to New Mexico.
The states have demanded that the court stop the tech billionaire from "making changes to the disbursement of public funds, government contracts, regulations or personnel, as well as receiving access to or altering data systems," according to reports.
The states wrote in the filing:
"Mr. 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 click of a mouse would have been shocking to those who won this country’s independence."
"There is no office of the United States, other than the President, with the full power of the Executive Branch, and the sweeping authority now vested in a single unelected and unconfirmed individual is antithetical to the nation’s entire constitutional structure," the filing further stated, per reports.
It is worth noting that a similar lawsuit was filed earlier on Thursday by several current and former employees at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), after the DOGE shuttered the civilian foreign aid and development assistance agency as one of its first projects, slashing its workforce from 10,000 to less than 300.
Furthermore, the department attempted to stop money from going into USAID by accessing the Department of Treasury payment system, although they had originally assured federal lawmakers in a letter that they only intended "to review the integrity of the payments and had “read-only access” to the system as part of an audit process."
Regarding the lawsuit filed by the 14 states, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in a statement:
"Our constitutional order was founded in part to guard against the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single individual, and while that construction was first focused on the abuse of power of an 18th century monarch, it is no less dangerous in the hands of a 21st century tech tycoon."
It is worth noting that on the same day, Gavin Kliger, one of the top officials working with DOGE, visited the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington to scrutinize operations, according to people familiar with the matter.
Federal government wings are seemingly on edge regarding visits from the DOGE, which has been tasked with scanning the government for areas where it can identify and remove what it deems as unnecessary government expenditures.
It was reported that the senior executives at the IRS were instructed via email on Thursday to identify all "non-essential" contracts for termination.
"In the email, senior executives at the IRS were told that the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages most government contracts, is demanding they review consulting contracts under their purview and determine whether they can be justified," reports have mentioned.
The email clarified that the General Services Administration would deem a contract non-essential if it "merely generates a report, research, coaching, or an artifact."
"Consistent with the goals and directives of the Trump administration to eliminate waste, reduce spending, and increase efficiency, GSA has taken the first steps in a government-wide initiative to eliminate non-essential consulting contracts," the email further read.
Despite the ruckus around the DOGE, President Trump said on Tuesday, February 11, that he was signing an executive order giving Musk more power over the federal workforce.
According to reports, the new executive order states that federal agencies must "coordinate and consult" with DOGE to cut jobs and limit hiring, and will be ordered to "undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force" and limit their hiring process to "essential positions" only.
Notably, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll, only 38% of the surveyed individuals said they approve of the job the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is doing with DOGE, placing the department's job approval ratings nearly 10 points behind the "historically low" ratings of President Donald Trump.
Reports mentioned that 24% of those in approval said they strongly approve of DOGE and how it is functioning and 14% said they “somewhat approve.”
On the other hand, the Economist/YouGov poll found that 47% of surveyed individuals said they disapprove of Musk and DOGE’s job performance, of which 41% said they “strongly disapprove” while 6% said they “somewhat disapprove.”