From suing drug companies over price fixing to seeking financial aid for disabled vets, state attorneys general pushed their legal causes in May, taking nine major actions in one of their busiest months on record.

Bernard Nash, co-chair of Cozen O'Connor's state attorney general practice in Washington, D.C., said Monday the nine actions in May “may be a record. We don't really track it numerically, but the previous high number we saw appears to be seven in July of 2018.” Nash's law firm publishes a weekly newsletter of major state attorneys general actions.

Nash said he would not be surprised if it is a record, given the increasing activism he is seeing among attorneys general. “And we expect it to continue,” he added.

Nash noted that several of the actions, about half, were bipartisan. “I've observed that they [attorneys general] have worked very closely across party lines on the opioid investigations and on clergy abuse investigations,” he said. “And I see that melding into more bipartisan corporate investigations and litigation, especially in the economic area.”

Such a trend would create concern for corporate general counsel, who must deal with any investigations or litigation.

In one recent bipartisan action in late May, 47 state attorneys general signed a letter urging Congress to allow the states to prosecute illegal online activity, such as black market opioid sales, identity theft and foreign data breaches. Such prosecution would require Congress to amend the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996, and it's the third time the states have asked for this authority.

The letter, from the National Association of Attorneys General, says, “Addressing criminal activity cannot be relegated to federal enforcement alone simply because the activity occurs online. The authorities in our states must be allowed to address these crimes themselves and fulfill our primary mandate to protect our citizens and enforce their rights.”

Two other actions also dealt with technology issues. One, a bipartisan request by 42 states, urged the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a proposed rule that would help clamp down on robocalls and other nuisance calls by expanding the scope of Truth in Caller ID Act rules.

In the other tech issue, 16 states reached a settlement with Medical Informatics Engineering Inc., an electronic health records company, over a data breach involving nearly 4 million patients' personal health information. The consent judgment and order requires the company to pay $900,000 to the states, implement a data security program, make other security enhancements, and better train employees on information security policies.

The other bipartisan actions last month included a 44-state coalition filing an antitrust lawsuit against 20 makers of generic drugs and 15 individuals for alleged price-fixing; 38 states urging Congress to protect banks that serve the cannabis industry in jurisdictions where its use is authorized; and a 50-state coalition and Puerto Rico calling on the Department of Education to automatically forgive the student loans of some 42,000 disabled military veterans.

The other state attorney general joint actions in May included:

• New York Attorney General Letitia James led a group of 23 states, cities and municipalities in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for enacting a rule allowing health care providers to refuse to give care if it would violate their religious or moral beliefs. The suit claims the so-called “conscience rule” discriminates against minority groups such as gays and Muslims.
• A group of 15 states urged the U.S. Department of Labor not to adopt a proposal that reverses federal overtime protections for some 8 million workers. The protections were adopted during the Obama Administration.
• The Labor Department was also the target of a group of 12 states, again led by New York, that criticized a recently adopted labor policy that fails to enforce provisions of the U.S. Affordable Care Act in employer health plans.

“When the federal government abdicates its legal responsibility to protect healthcare consumers through evasive statements constructed to obscure and confuse, you can count on New York to tell it like it is,” said a statement from the state's acting financial services superintendent Linda Lacewell. “Association Health Plans must now, at a minimum, meet key [Affordable Care Act] provisions.”