The author of a recent guest column in these pages asked whose interests Arkansas' attorney general is serving. That's easy: I serve you, the people of Arkansas.

That means enforcing Arkansas law, protecting Arkansas consumers from fraud and deception, and making sure that when individuals and companies violate the law, Arkansans are protected and wrongdoers are held accountable.

Consumer protection is one of my core duties as attorney general. At the center of that critical responsibility is the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The ADTPA exists because consumer fraud, deception, and unfair practices exist. Every state has a version of it, and state attorneys general--Democrat and Republican--enforce those laws. That is because protecting consumers from fraud and deception is one of the most basic functions of a state attorney general.

The guest column author wants very badly to conflate the fundamental duty of consumer-protection enforcement into a broader attack on tort litigation and trial lawyers. But those are two entirely different things. Neither tort litigation nor tort reform has anything to do with my statutory and constitutional duty to enforce consumer-protection laws under the ADTPA. Lawsuits brought by private parties under tort law are separate from and have no bearing on enforcement actions brought by me under the ADTPA.

I am a conservative who believes in limited government, fiscal discipline, and the rule of law, including the ADTPA. Those principles require me to hold individuals and companies accountable when they break the law. I will not look the other way when fraud and deception harm Arkansas consumers. Free markets require rules, and rules require enforcement. If an individual or company lies, cheats, manipulates, conceals, or otherwise violates Arkansas law, then refusing to act would not be pro-business, and it would not be pro-consumer.

It would be an abdication of my duty as Arkansas' chief law enforcement officer. And that ain't gonna happen.

The author also attacks my office's use of outside counsel. This ignores the practical realities of modern litigation and the advantages of using outside counsel in appropriate cases. My philosophy is simple: Keep government, and my office, lean. My strategy has been to build a world-class team of lawyers on permanent staff and, when a matter requires specialized expertise, additional manpower or resources that would make no sense to carry on the permanent payroll. When we win--and we usually do--Arkansans win and bad actors are held accountable. When we lose, because we use outside counsel, we pay nothing. This approach is practical and conservative.

The alternative would be to build a larger bureaucracy inside government for every major industry, every novel technology, every complicated data issue, every massive discovery fight, and every multistate enforcement action. Arkansas taxpayers don't want that, and good government doesn't require it.

Using outside counsel in appropriate cases allows us to pursue serious violations of law without expanding the size of government. It also allows us to match the resources of large corporate defendants without asking Arkansas taxpayers to front the cost of every complex case. That is especially true where outside counsel is retained on a contingency basis. If there is no recovery, the state is not writing checks for years of litigation costs. That is not a "litigation machine"--it is a disciplined way to enforce the law without growing government.

The author also tries to paint me as a hypocrite for retaining outside counsel in my office's litigation against bad actors but objecting to the illegal attempt by the Arkansas Board of Corrections to hire outside counsel in its misguided litigation against other parts of state government.

The difference is simple. I follow the law; the former majority of the Board of Corrections did not. There is a legal process for state agencies to hire outside counsel. My office is involved in that process, and I routinely authorize outside counsel when the requests are appropriate. The attorney general's authority to retain outside counsel for contingency fee arrangements is governed by a different law, and my office follows it to the letter. It is not hypocrisy both to follow the law and to call out those who do not. It is fulfilling my oath.

The guest column also suggests that when federal agencies are involved in a matter, a state should back away. That is not federalism, and that is not conservative. Arkansas is not a subsidiary office of Washington. We have our own laws, our own sovereign interests, and our own responsibility to protect our citizens. A true conservative understands that Arkansas is not supposed to wait for the federal government to determine whether corporate misconduct affecting Arkansans is worth punishing. A federal regulator's involvement in a particular area does not nullify Arkansas law, and it does not relieve me of my obligation to enforce it. Parallel state and federal enforcement is a common feature of our federal system, not a flaw in it.

Equally misplaced is the suggestion that consumer-protection enforcement is responsible for higher costs or frivolous litigation. My office's actions are not about inflating premiums or encouraging frivolous lawsuits. They are about stopping deception, punishing unlawful conduct, recovering money when Arkansas consumers are harmed, and deterring future misconduct.

If the guest columnist had his way, the following cases I filed to protect Arkansans would be dismissed:

Our case against Meta for designing algorithms that cause addiction in children;

Our case against pharmacy benefit managers for their role in the opioid crisis;

Our case against Syngenta for conduct that cost Arkansas farmers millions of dollars; and

Our case against TikTok for exposing children to harmful content and putting Arkansans' personal data at risk from the Chinese Communist Party.

The guest columnist would have us stop enforcing Arkansas law whenever the defendant is a large, well-connected company with expensive lawyers.

I cannot in good conscience do that. I will enforce the law, and do so responsibly, with the excellent in-house lawyers I have on staff and, when appropriate, excellent outside lawyers. And I will do it in a way that respects taxpayers, respects the law, and respects the duty this office owes the people of Arkansas.

That is the job the people of Arkansas elected me to do, and I will keep doing it with energy, passion, and enthusiasm.

Tim Griffin is the attorney general of Arkansas.

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