Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown has already joined two lawsuits against the new Trump administration — and more are almost certainly on the way, with President Donald Trump testing the limits of executive power during his first two weeks in office.

Brown, a Democrat, has $1 million earmarked by state law in his office’s budget this year for a federal litigation unit, a request he made shortly after Trump won reelection in November.

“There’s been an avalanche of objectionable and frightening, in many ways, actions by the administration,” Brown said in an interview. “The AGs are going to be on the front line of protecting the rights and interests and privileges of the residents of their respective states.”

The office is reprising a role it played under the first Trump administration, but legal observers say there is a new urgency this time: With the federal government projecting chaos, state attorneys general could play an unprecedented role in protecting constitutional rights and enforcing laws during the next four years.

“The flood of inappropriate and unconstitutional or illegal action [from the administration] will require litigation by the Maryland attorney general and other states on a scope no one has ever seen before in the history of this country,” said Michael I. Meyerson, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law who studies constitutional law and American legal history.

Lawsuits challenging Trump’s actions on birthright citizenship and his recent freeze on federal grant funding both succeeded in getting the orders temporarily blocked in court. Maryland joined both suits.

Brown said he is grateful to have the resources to set up the litigation unit, which will quarterback the office’s efforts to push back on federal actions that affect Maryland.

Even before the $1 million had been set aside, the Attorney General’s Office began listing jobs in the unit on its website, including one senior assistant attorney general, four assistant attorneys general and one litigation assistant.

Brown said he worked with Maryland’s Department of Budget and Management to ensure that the funds are available immediately.

Brian Frosh, who served as Maryland’s attorney general from 2015 until 2023, oversaw dozens of lawsuits against the first Trump administration during his tenure. Unlike Brown, Frosh also had to contend with a Republican governor who did not support the litigation.

State legislators gave the Attorney General’s Office new powers to file lawsuits in 2017, after then-Gov. Larry Hogan ignored a request from Frosh to sue over Trump’s travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries. At the time, the attorney general in Maryland needed permission from the governor to sue the federal government.

The Maryland Defense Act of 2017 allowed Frosh to sue without the governor’s go-ahead and mandated that Hogan set aside $1 million in the state budget each year for federal litigation.

That money never materialized; Hogan left the funding out of his budgets.

“We patched a lot of things together,” Frosh said this week. The office shared work with other Democratic attorneys general and got pro bono help in other cases. In all, Frosh estimated that his office participated in more than 90 cases against the administration.

Some lawmakers believe that the AG’s office should stay out of these political fights unless they are absolutely necessary to protect Maryland.

Del. Jason Buckel, the minority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates, said he believes the attorney general’s office has adequate resources to handle “the occasional matter where Maryland’s interests are uniquely implicated.”

Buckel also cautioned against filing lawsuits for political purposes, rather than to protect Marylanders’ interests. He pointed to Frosh’s emoluments lawsuit over whether Trump illegally profited off the presidency, which fizzled out because Trump left office.

“I don’t think it makes sense to say we’re going to have a litigation team joining in 37 lawsuits all over the country every week, mainly for politics,” Buckel said.

Meyerson, the University of Baltimore law professor, said Brown’s office can use lawsuits against the federal government to play both defense and offense.

The offense would involve suing to stop the administration from taking an action that might harm Marylanders, he said, like last week’s suit over Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship.

The office can also file defensive lawsuits if the Trump administration tries to force Maryland to do something, such as if it pushes the states to enforce immigration laws, he said.

The problem, Meyerson said, is that there are so many potential cases, given the onslaught of executive orders already issued and the breakneck speed at which Trump’s second administration is moving.

“Maryland has a really first-class AG’s office,” Meyerson said, “but I do think that every state AG should be calling in private counsel to help them.”

State attorneys general may also need to take on greater enforcement of civil rights laws, worker protections and environmental regulations if the federal government stops acting on them, lawyers said, requiring even more resources.

The U.S. Department of Justice, for example, put a freeze on civil rights litigation days after Trump took office.

State attorneys general can fill that void, said Reuben Guttman, a D.C. attorney whose practice includes civil rights and complex litigation.

“It speaks to the need for AGs to say, ‘We can no longer count on the federal government to guarantee equality, and that’s where we’re going to make our mark,‘ ” Guttman said.

Brown said his office is ready for the challenge. He is also asking lawmakers this session to change state housing laws to match the stronger federal rules — in case those federal laws are weakened.

“You never know what happens as the president shapes the federal judiciary and what they could do to gut the existing federal law,” Brown said. “I’m working to put in place the tools I need at the state level.”