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Attorney General seeks to use consumer-settlement funds to boost enforcement and hiring
Summary
Attorney General Raul Torres asked the House Appropriations & Finance Committee to allow limited use of consumer-settlement fund balances to support enforcement, hiring and impact litigation rather than expanding general fund support.
Attorney General Raul Torres addressed the House Appropriations & Finance Committee and urged the use of consumer-settlement fund balances to expand legal capacity for consumer protection, impact litigation and child-protection investigations.
Nut graf: Torres said the attorney general's office has recovered more than $400 million on behalf of the state in recent years and asked the committee to permit a modest portion of those recoveries to fund the office's operations and expand staff in areas that do not otherwise generate revenue. LFC recommended using part of the consumer settlement fund for operational needs; DFA's executive recommendation proposed a smaller general fund increase and kept federal and other revenue levels flat.
What the office asked for: The attorney general asked for additional positions targeted at impact litigation and enforcement and presented a plan that would use consumer settlement funds to support legal services operations rather than relying on additional general fund. He told the committee the LFC recommendation would allow the office to use roughly 1.7% of recovered amounts for operational needs, enabling hiring of attorneys, investigators and paralegals to increase enforcement capacity.
Why it matters: Torres argued additional capacity would allow the office to pursue consumer, pharmaceutical and social-media-related litigation and to support civil rights and child welfare investigations; he also cited an inability to rely on general fund for sustained resourcing for those functions.
Committee response and vote: Committee discussion focused on the fund's purpose and the balance between using settlement proceeds to reimburse harmed consumers and funding enforcement. The committee adopted the LFC recommendation during the hearing and asked for follow-up material on fund balances and the projected uses the attorney general proposed.
Ending: The attorney general said the requested approach would not add general fund pressure and would expand capacity to pursue cases with statewide benefit and return funds to the public.
