Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced Texas is co-leading efforts with the Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, along with nine other states, to ask a U.S. District Court to halt the U.S. Department of Labor’s plans to impose new rules that would make it more difficult and expensive for small business owners to obtain legal advice. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that states have the absolute authority to regulate the practice of law within their borders.
“Once again, I find myself standing up to the kind of overreach that has marked the Obama administration,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said. “For over 50 years, and through ten Presidential administrations, both Democrat and Republican, the rules have been constant and never interpreted to encroach upon the sanctity of the attorney-client relationship or the right of the States to regulate the practice of law.”
Joining Texas and Arkansas in the filing were Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.