Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is pushing for additional funding for his office as it takes on a host of lawsuits and legal filings against actions by the Trump administration.

“What we want to make clear to the legislature is that we’re a good investment, right? And it’s not a time to disinvest in our office,” Raoul said in an interview.

Illinois was facing a tight budget year even before President Donald Trump assumed office, and now faces the additional threat of federal funding cuts. And since Trump arrived at the White House, Raoul’s office has partnered with dozens of other states in a series of lawsuits on issues ranging from birthright citizenship to mass layoffs at the Department of Education that he and other attorneys general argue violate the law or U.S. Constitution.

Raoul said the budget proposal Gov. JB Pritzker’s office put forth in February would not provide the attorney general’s office with enough money to keep up with ongoing litigation against the Trump administration and an expected retreat by the federal government on civil rights, consumer protection and antitrust enforcement.

The governor’s office proposed $106 million for the attorney’s general from the general revenue fund in fiscal 2026, according to its budget book. That’s almost $15 million less than the approximately $120 million the AG’s office wants, which is the general revenue fund total proposed in appropriations legislation filed in late February.

Alex Gough, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said Pritzker’s proposal “included the exact dollar amount requested” by the AG’s office to the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget ahead of the governor’s budget speech Feb. 19.

But as lawsuits against Trump on behalf of the state mount, the attorney general is pushing for more. In addition to the lawsuits, Raoul pointed to other areas from the governor’s proposal it’s working on, including advocacy behind reform for pharmacy benefit managers, which Pritzker has cited as a policy priority.

“Almost everything he spoke to in his (budget) address leans on action from the attorney general’s office,” Raoul said.

Gough indicated the governor’s office understands the AG’s position.

“As the extreme Republican agenda in Washington impacts the state, the attorney general’s office should work with the legislature to seek an appropriate amount needed,” Gough said. “As always, the governor appreciates the attorney’s general efforts to protect Illinoisans against unnecessary encroachment by the federal government.”

Pritzker and the Democratic-controlled legislature have until the end of May to agree on a budget. Raoul said he will make his case for more funding, based partly on the need for additional staff who can be paid competitive salaries, during House and Senate budget hearings scheduled to be held in Chicago on April 15 and 18.

Other Democratic-led states that are fighting Trump’s initiatives face similar predicaments. California Gov. Gavin Newsom last month approved $25 million for anticipated legal challenges to the Trump administration, the publication CalMatters reported.

Some two dozen lawyers in the Illinois AG’s office have been assigned to one or more of the lawsuits against the Trump administration so far, and some of them are spending half or more of their week on that work. The AG’s office employs about 800 people, according to budget documents from the governor’s office, but that number isn’t broken down by position.

“Without this added federal accountability litigation, we would still be — have more than enough work to keep everybody busy for a full day, everyday,” Raoul said. “So what we’ve had to do is sort of pull people from different parts of our office.”

Since Trump took office, Raoul has led or signed onto at least eight lawsuits with other state attorneys general, mostly centered around what Trump and billionaire Elon Musk say are moves to cut costs.

Those efforts have led to some initial victories, such as a short-term stoppage on mass layoffs at 18 federal agencies earlier this month. A hearing on a motion to extend that order was scheduled for Wednesday morning in Baltimore.

The case on Trump’s order attempting to deny citizenship to newborns whose parents are in the U.S. illegally — which the Illinois and other plaintiffs say violates the 14th Amendment — is expected to be heard in a Washington state federal court in June, according to a court document filed last month. A federal judge in that case blocked the administration’s order early in Trump’s term, pending further arguments.

The U.S. Department of Justice has said the president’s order “correctly interprets the 14th Amendment of the Constitution” and that it would continue to defend the executive action.

In addition to the high-profile lawsuits, Raoul also sees a greater workload for his office on the horizon as leadership at federal agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Trade Commission have signaled a pullback in enforcement in certain areas.

The increase in action against the federal government comes on top of the AG’s normal duties. It’s currently in a legal battle with banks over a first-in-the-nation state law on credit card fees and has also filed lawsuits with other attorneys general against tech giants TikTok and Meta, Facebook’s owner.

The attorney general’s office is partially self-funded, as it earns money for the state through litigation, Raoul said, but “that’s not a stable way to be funding an office that’s as important as ours.”

Overall, the office had a total budget of $193 million this year, and the governor recommended a total budget — including funding streams outside of the operating budget determined by the General Assembly — of more than $200 million in the upcoming year.

The Associated Press contributed.