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How many lawsuits did the federal government file against the Obama administration?
Executive summary
There is no single count in the provided reporting that tabulates “how many lawsuits the federal government filed against the Obama administration.” Available sources document many high‑profile suits against the Obama administration brought by states, members of Congress, advocacy groups and others (examples include at least dozens filed by Texas and multistate coalitions) and also record the administration’s heavy FOIA litigation costs in 2016, but none of the supplied items gives an overall numeric total of federal‑government‑filed suits against the Obama White House or a definitive list of every case (not found in current reporting) (p1_s7; [10]; [2]/[3]/p1_s6).
1. What the supplied coverage actually measures — and what it doesn’t
The documents you provided focus mainly on lawsuits against the Obama administration (filed by states, Congress or private groups) and on the administration’s defense spending in FOIA cases, not on suits filed by the federal government against the administration itself. For example, coverage of Texas’s litigation posture reports “at least 44” suits by Texas against the Obama administration and later cites up to 97 in a seven‑year span, but this is litigation initiated by a state, not by the federal government [1]. The AP/PBS pieces quantify FOIA legal spending ($36.2 million in Obama’s final year) but do not enumerate suits filed by the federal government itself [2] [3] [4] [5].
2. Who sued the Obama administration — and why it matters
The supplied reporting explains that a wide range of actors routinely sued the Obama administration: state attorneys general coordinated multistate litigation (often Republican AGs challenging policies like the Affordable Care Act), the U.S. House sued over implementation decisions, and civil‑rights and advocacy groups brought immigration and detention suits [6] [7] [8]. These suits reflect structural checks in American government: when the executive acts by regulation or policy, states and other plaintiffs often use the courts to contest legality, producing many individual cases rather than a single consolidated count [6] [9].
3. Examples and scale from the supplied sources
The Texas governor’s office cited a Wall Street Journal account saying Texas had sued the Obama administration “at least 44 times” and later that number rose to 97 cases in seven years—an illustration of one state’s litigation activity [1]. The ABA Journal and attorneys‑general database pieces document the growth of multistate suits and note that coordinated state actions became a common tactic during Obama’s presidency—again, showing volume but not producing a single government‑filed‑against‑administration tally [10] [6]. The House GOP filed U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell in 2014 challenging ACA implementation, another high‑visibility example [11] [7].
4. What the FOIA spending figures tell us (and what they don’t)
Several supplied reports quantify legal spending defending FOIA refusals: AP and PBS reported the Obama administration spent about $36.2 million on FOIA litigation in its final year and handled a record number of FOIA requests, indicating heavy litigation and administrative workload but not counting unique lawsuits filed by the federal government against the administration [2] [3] [4] [5]. Those figures show resource commitments to defending executive records decisions, not the number of suits initiated by other federal actors.
5. Why a single numeric answer is elusive in these sources
The available documents document many distinct litigation streams—state suits, multistate coalitions, congressional lawsuits, advocacy group suits and administrative defenses of FOIA requests—but none compiles every suit into a single total or lists suits that the federal government itself would file against the executive branch (not found in current reporting) [6] [1] [7]. Different entries count different things (e.g., state‑filed suits, multistate actions, FOIA defense costs), so attempting to combine them into one “how many lawsuits” number without a comprehensive, sourceable tally would be methodologically unsound.
6. How you can get a firm total
To produce a defensible total you would need a single primary dataset or authoritative compendium that enumerates litigation brought against the Obama administration over the period in question (federal courts docket searches, an academic litigation database, or an attorneys‑general database consolidated report). The current sources do offer useful partial counts and examples—Texas’s tally, multistate trends, and FOIA defense spending—that illuminate the litigation landscape but do not supply the overall number you asked for (p1_s7; [10]; [2]/[3]/p1_s6).
If you want, I can: (a) attempt to build a partial tally from the specific lawsuits and datasets referenced in these sources; or (b) outline a research plan and list exact public databases (PACER, state AG press pages, attorneys‑general litigation trackers) you’d need to consult to produce a comprehensive count (note: those specific databases are not described in the supplied sources).