A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s frivolous suit against the Federal Communications Commission for last December’s FCC repeal of the so-called “net neutrality” rule.

Though I disagreed with the suit, I was charitable to Frosh, writing that he was merely exercising new power given to him by the Maryland General Assembly to sue the federal government at his discretion. And I was charitable to the MGA for granting that power, writing that under a new presidential administration claiming expansive levels of executive authority, federalism is an important check on that authority.

Now Frosh is launching a second meritless suit, this time over the recently adopted federal tax legislation. Frosh claims the legislation is unfair because of such provisions as caps on tax breaks for mortgage interest and state and local taxes.

This is a curious complaint given Frosh’s frequent posturing as a progressive. It's not progressive to defend tax breaks for million-dollar homes and high earners in lux enclaves. But such hypocrisy is not my complaint; Maryland politics is chock full of folks who claim to be progressive but who really champion the rich and privileged.

The real problem is that Frosh knows this suit is baseless, just as he knows the FCC suit is baseless. The federal government has ample authority to cap tax breaks and repeal its own ill-conceived communications regulations. It’s fine for Maryland officials to criticize those policies, but it is abuse of political authority and taxpayer money to launch frivolous suits over them in an effort to politically grandstand.

As I noted in my previous post, Frosh is acting no differently than businessman Donald Trump did when he launched nuisance suits against his rivals—except that Trump was doing so as a private individual on his own dime.

The MGA needs to put a stop to this by withdrawing the power (and budget outlay) that Frosh is abusing and restoring the requirement that he receive explicit MGA approval for such actions. Further, MGA leaders should have a frank discussion with Frosh and his assistant AGs about their poor judgment and whether they are fit to continue in their offices.