A panel of Ninth Circuit judges on Tuesday questioned whether a national monument banning mining around the Grand Canyon had sufficiently harmed the Arizona State Legislature to give it standing to challenge the preserve in federal court.
The Trump administration and the state of Arizona also defended the US District Court for the District of Arizona’s 2025 dismissal of the suit on the grounds that the legislature doesn’t have standing.
“The attorney general represents the state here in federal court—not the Legislature, not the treasurer,” said Alexander Samuels, deputy solicitor general for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. “If the state ...