ELY — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison brought his listening tour to the end of the road last Friday, and he came ready with numbers to justify his office’s legal battles against the Trump administration.
When a resident asked about the taxpayer costs of repeatedly suing the federal government, Ellison offered a cost-benefit analysis. He said his office dedicates four attorneys to what he calls “federal accountability” work, costing roughly $1 million annually in salaries and benefits. But in one case alone, Minnesota recovered $2.2 billion.
“I am confident that even though it’s too bad we have to spend money on federal accountability all the time, it is worth it to do,” he told the auditorium at Minnesota North College.
The attorney general is currently involved in several lawsuits challenging various Trump administration policies. He and 23 other attorneys general recently argued before the Supreme Court that the president’s sweeping tariff authority exceeds constitutional limits, though Ellison expressed frustration that no Republican attorneys general have joined the effort despite similar concerns in their states.
“I would be more than happy, head over heels happy, if we could get some Republicans to join us,” he said. “We want them.”
On tariffs, Ellison was direct. “Tariffs are not taxing a foreign government,” he said. “They’re taxing you. It’s a regressive tax on Americans” that disproportionately impacts lower-income households.
Immigration enforcement drew comments from the crowd, including from one woman whose friends, legal green card holders, canceled plans to attend an international wedding for fear of detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement upon their return.
Ellison outlined his office’s response, including successful lawsuits blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold federal emergency management funds from states that don’t turn local law enforcement into “ICE deputies.”
The office has also distributed guidance informing residents that without a judge-issued warrant, they don’t have to open their doors to ICE agents.
“We’re not a sanctuary state,” Ellison clarified. “We’re a separation state. We do our stuff with the resources of Minnesota for Minnesotans. You do your federal stuff with your own resources. We don’t work for you, you don’t work for us.”
He also addressed the constitutional framework behind these battles, invoking the Tenth Amendment’s division of federal and state powers.
“When we go to court with the federal government, we’re not going in there as stepchildren, an entity with lower status,” Ellison said. “We’re going in there as a sovereign.”
One veteran sought assurances about protecting peaceful protest rights amid executive orders designating protesters as domestic terrorists.
Ellison promised to protect those rights. He pointed to recent massive protests — including 115,000 people in downtown Minneapolis and 660 in Ely — as evidence of Americans exercising their constitutional rights despite intimidation efforts.
The attorney general also discussed his office’s ongoing efforts against social media platforms over “deepfake” technology, where AI-generated videos falsely depict people endorsing products or positions they never supported.
Minnesota passed a law banning the practice but has been sued by social media companies who argue that deepfakes are a First Amendment right.
“We are fighting literally for the truth,” Ellison said.
Throughout the forum, Ellison’s tone mixed urgency with pragmatism. He acknowledged the conservative Supreme Court majority while noting that recent decisions have been less predictable than many assume, with Justices Roberts, Coney Barrett, and Kavanaugh sometimes breaking from the court’s right wing.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, the Supreme Court’s backwards nowadays,’ but you know what? We’ve seen interesting decisions,” he said. “We don’t write them off.” He said many lawyers arguing in front of the Supreme Court now tailor their arguments to swaying just those three justices.
On gun violence, Ellison was careful to affirm his support for the Second Amendment while stating that “the number one killer of children today is firearms.”
He pointed to the recent shooting deaths of two children at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis as evidence that current policies have gone too far.
“Those two little children were shot down at prayer. They weren’t hurting nobody,” he said. His office is currently suing a gun retailer that sold 37 firearms to two people within weeks, weapons that ended up used in crimes, and challenging Glock over marketing materials suggesting some of their firearms can easily be converted into illegal machine guns with a minor modification.
As the forum wound down, Ellison returned to a theme he’d emphasized throughout: the value of democratic argument and civic engagement, even when it’s difficult.
“Democracy is hard, but we need to be able to just argue it out,” he told the crowd, encouraging continued communication with his office on emerging issues affecting rural Minnesota.