With Trump gone, Ferguson’s fight goes on. Now he’s targeting Idaho’s cruel abortion ban.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson isn’t afraid of making headlines. In fact, he seems to kind of like it.

He’s certainly not shy about filing lawsuits, and the two often go hand in hand.

During the Trump administration alone, the Democratic darling and possible (if not likely) future gubernatorial candidate filed more than 80 of them, standing up in defense of critical things like the Affordable Care Act and against cruel things like Trump’s initial travel ban. Not only was Ferguson largely successful in this pursuit – notching victories against the former administration much of the time, in large part because the former administration was historically incoherent and incompetent – he kept his public and political profile high in the process, in Washington and beyond.

So when Trump begrudgingly left office two years ago, it was fair to wonder how Ferguson and his large team of lawyers would occupy their time. Finally take up golfing, perhaps? Sign up for TikTok? Rewatch The Queen’s Gambit? The possibilities seemed endless.

But as it turns out, the work of Washington’s Attorney General goes on even without an angry orange man in the Oval Office, and for those on the front line of the fight for reproductive care access in the wake of the fall of Roe v. Wade, that’s a very good thing.

As McClatchy’s Shauna Sowersby recently reported, this week Ferguson joined the Department of Justice and 20 other state attorneys generals from across the country challenging Idaho’s controversial “trigger ban” on abortions, which is scheduled to go into affect Aug. 25 and would ban nearly all abortions in the state. Basically, the lawsuit argues that the ban – which is nothing short of draconian, to be perfectly clear – represents a violation of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act because, in the recent words of U.S. Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, it “pre-emptively criminalizes all abortions … even where a denial of care will likely result in the death of the patient.”

Ferguson and his team filed what’s known as a friend of the court brief, noting the obvious: Not only would Idaho’s Handmaid’s Tale-esque abortion ban unnecessarily put lives at danger and subject responsible medical professionals to possible criminal prosecution, in Washington it would result in an influx of individuals seeking abortions crossing over state lines to find the medical care they need.

Now, a friend of the court brief isn’t a major move, to be certain, but it’s not nothing, either. And Ferguson is exactly right: As our neighboring state seeks to set the clock back at least 50 years, there’s plenty at stake for Washington.

In fact, Ferguson said, we’re already feeling the effects, thanks to the six-week abortion ban that recently went into effect in Idaho.

Unless a federal court sides with the Department and issues an injunction in the trigger ban case, things will get a whole lot more dystopian come Aug. 25.

“We are already seeing a significant influx of Idahoans seeking abortion services in Washington, and that will only increase with this new, restrictive law,” Ferguson said in a press release announcing the move. “What happens in Idaho directly impacts Washington. Not only is Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion wrong, it violates federal law.”

That last part, of course, will ultimately be up to the courts to decide. And if we’ve learned anything over the last few months, it’s the potential peril of assuming previous norms and precedents will stand up in the face of the Right’s unflinching and ongoing attack on reproductive rights.

Still, as one of the overwhelming majority of Washingtonians who supports the right to choose, I’m glad Ferguson’s office hasn’t decided to take it easy.

Trump might no longer be president, but the fight goes on.

Matt Driscoll can be reached at (253) 597-8657 or on Twitter @mattsdriscoll.