Texas spent $6.1 million suing the Biden administration

• Paxton celebrated in November that his office had filed 100 lawsuits against the administration. His first suit was two days into President Biden's term, he said, when he successfully challenged Biden's then-pause on deportations.

The big picture: Democratic attorneys general, meanwhile, are sharpening plans to become the de facto blue state resistance to a second Trump term.

• California is gearing up for a legal battle with $25 million. State leaders there want to defend their progressive laws while fighting Trump's plans for mass deportations and more.

Between the lines: Paxton is preparing to stand down if his focus during Trump's first term is any indication.

• Axios also requested an accounting of money spent related to lawsuits against the Trump administration during the four years before. In response to Axios' open-records request, Paxton's office said there were no responsive records to provide.

What they're saying: A spokesperson for Paxton did not respond to multiple questions from Axios. In November, Paxton said in a statement that the Biden administration's agenda harmed the country.

• "From unlawfully orchestrating the border invasion to attacking our oil and gas industries and illegally abusing taxpayer money to censor our own citizens, the federal government has been ruthlessly weaponized against the American people," Paxton said at the time. "But Texas stood in their way."
• Among lawsuits, Paxton targeted a plan to send federal voting monitors to some Texas counties during the last election, a program that grants an easier path to citizenship to undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, vaccine mandates and endangered species listings.

Zoom in: State attorneys general have used lawsuits to shape federal policy for decades, Paul Nolette, director of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University, tells Axios.

• But in the last eight years, he's observed a "major increase" in the number of suits that states bring, and in the types of policy they target — from immigration to health care.
• Attorneys general are now "willing to sue about anything and everything" coming out of D.C., says Nolette, who's written a book about how states use litigation to influence national policy.

Flashback: Texas sued the Obama administration at least 48 times over eight years at a cost of more than $5.9 million, according to a Texas Tribune review. Gov. Greg Abbott filed some of those lawsuits when he was attorney general, followed by Paxton.

• In half the time, Paxton sued twice as much during Biden's four years.

Reality check: The Biden administration has sued Texas, too.

• A year ago, Biden's Justice Department sued to stop Texas from enforcing a law allowing state officials to arrest and seek deportation of migrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without legal authorization. The law remains on hold.
• The DOJ also sued the state over a string of buoys in the Rio Grande meant to prevent people from crossing the border illegally. The case is making its way through the courts. An appeals court said last year the buoys can stay in the meantime.

State of play: Even if Texas' lawsuits did not ultimately succeed, they often delayed Biden's measures or created uncertainty around them — like with the deportation pause. Texas has "a real influence here," Nolette says.

• Larger states that tend to lead group lawsuits — like Texas and California — spend more than states that simply sign onto a suit, he adds.

The bottom line: "There's a lot of upside, and not much downside, to going after policy that might be unpopular in your state and going after an administration that might be unpopular in your state," Nolette says.