Attorney General Herbert Slatery

The Attorney General of Texas sued four swing states in the U.S. Supreme Court this week for favoring “Democrat voters,” the Tennessee Attorney General agreed with him, and the top Tennessee Democrat called this “embarrassing.”

Texas AG Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin Monday directly with the U.S. Supreme Court. He said, “The 2020 election suffered from significant and unconstitutional irregularities in the defendant states.”

How? Paxton said “non-legislative actors’ purported amendments” to the states election laws were illegal. Also, “intrastate differences in the treatment of voters, with more favorable allotted to voters — whether lawful or unlawful — in areas administered by local government under Democrat control and with populations with higher ratios of Democrat voters than other areas of defendant states.”

For all of this, Paxton wants the states’ legislatures to convene and appoint Presidential Electors.

Tennessee AG Herbert Slatery agreed with all of this so much that he joined a friendly, but very official amicus brief on the matter with the state of Missouri.

AG Slatery Joins Amicus Brief Supporting Texas Election Lawsuit: https://t.co/gZqdMESCgb

— TN Attorney General (@TNattygen) December 9, 2020

Senator Jeff Yarbro Bashes AG Slatery’s Support for Election Lawsuit (3)

“The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has consistently taken the position that only a state’s legislature has the authority to make and change election laws,” he said in a statement issued Wednesday. “This office pressed that argument in cases defending Tennessee’s election laws against pandemic-related challenges and in amicus briefs in cases involving similar challenges in other courts.

“This is not something new. Texas’s action in the Supreme Court seeks to vindicate the same important separation-of-powers principles, and that is why we joined Missouri’s amicus brief in support of that action.”

Later Wednesday, Tennessee Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) bashed Slatery’s move on Twitter.

This is embarrassing and marks a low point in the history of the office of the @TNattygen. https://t.co/dJxBiC3yDg

— Jeff Yarbro (@yarbro) December 9, 2020

Senator Jeff Yarbro Bashes AG Slatery’s Support for Election Lawsuit

Here’s the context. The AG in Texas is under FBI investigation and widely assumed to be fishing for a pardon. Now @TNattygen is spending TN resources to help!?!

Plus-notably shoddy legal work. And-the goal is interfering in how states run elections, fighting democracy, or both. https://t.co/E7DwyVqqWb

— Jeff Yarbro (@yarbro) December 9, 2020

Senator Jeff Yarbro Bashes AG Slatery’s Support for Election Lawsuit (2)

Read the lawsuit here:

[pdf-1]

Justin Fox Burks

The state of Tennessee sued an opioid manufacturing company recently on marketing claims that its products were less addictive and more effective than other products.

Attorney General Herbert Slatery said Tuesday the state sued Endo Pharmaceuticals and Endo Health Solutions Inc. for violating the state’s consumer protection laws and contributing to “a devastating public health crisis in Tennessee.”

“Our office has conducted an extensive investigation into Endo’s unlawful marketing practices, which included targeting vulnerable populations like the elderly,” Slatery said in a statement. “Endo has repeatedly refused to take responsibility for its unconscionable conduct, which is why we are taking this action.”

The state’s 180-page complaint is sealed as Endo said some of the information it contains is confidential. The seal expires in 10 days, unless Endo moves to extend it. Slatery said the complaint should be made available to the public in its entirety and “efforts to keep it confidential will only prolong and diminish Endo’s accountability for its conduct.” [pullquote-1]

Slatery

Endo deceptively marketed its opioid products as being less addictive and more effective than others on the market, Slatery said.

“It did this despite evidence to the contrary, including the (U.S. Food & Drug Adminstration’s) explicit rejection of Endo’s claim that Opana (extended release – ER) was resistant to abuse as well as overwhelming evidence that Opana ER was being abused throughout Tennessee,” reads the statement.

Tennessee argues the company knew the dangers of its opioid products, including increased risks of respiratory depression and death in elderly patients. Also, the company did not clearly disclose those risks while it specifically targeted patients in that age group, says Slatery’s office.

In June 2017, the FDA asked Endo to remove Opana ER from the market. It was the first time the agency acted to remove an on-the-market opioid pain medication from sale “due to the public health consequences of abuse.”

“The abuse and manipulation of reformulated Opana ER by injection has resulted in a serious disease outbreak,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said at the time. “When we determined that the product had dangerous unintended consequences, we made a decision to request its withdrawal from the market. This action will protect the public from further potential for misuse and abuse of this product.”

The company’s stock slid from $94.46 per share in April 2015 to to $6.69 in Tuesday afternoon trading, according to Google Finance.