Will New Jersey's Phil Murphy lead Trump resistance now that Schneiderman is out? Murphy no longer operating in shadow of disgraced NY Attorney General

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Phil Murphy appoints nation's first Sikh Attorney General Governor Phil Murphy named Gurbir Grewal as attorney general.

Eric Schneiderman, the disgraced former New York attorney general, quickly vacated his office this week and his role as one of the nation's high-profile antagonists of Donald J. Trump.

Now that resignation raises a question: Will New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy -- and his Attorney General Gurbir Grewal -- fill the void and become leader of the states' fight against Trump?

Schneiderman, accused of physically assaulting four women, feuded with Trump long before he won the presidency. He sued Trump University for fraud in 2013 and won a $25 million class action settlement last year.

And after Trump's inauguration, Schneiderman became the de facto leader of an multi-state, anti-Trump resistance brewing beyond the beltway, suing Trump over immigration, environmental and health care issues. Murphy and Grewal have eagerly joined the fray.

Now, the politically ambitious Schneiderman is no longer leading the show. He is now the target of a special prosecutor.

That creates an opening for a highly visible Trump foe from the northeast, someone with proximity to the New York media market.

In other words, a chance custom-made for Phil Murphy, who is rapidly building a national brand as the high-energy liberal warrior from New Jersey and who rarely misses a chance to take a swipe at the Trump administration. Murphy could move from under Schneiderman's shadow and lead the charge.

Murphy indicated Wednesday that Schneiderman's departure would not derail their joint-push back efforts with New York, but offered no clues as to whether he is eager to step into the spotlight as his successor.

READ MORE: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigns amid physical abuse allegations

“I don’t want to put words in the mouth of our attorney general but we don’t want to let a day go by just because someone has left the field,'' Murphy said of Schneiderman Wednesday at a bill signing ceremony in Newark.

Yet, in an interview with The Record and Northjersey.com, Grewal was quick to point out that there was no effort to build a "brand" for himself and stressed that he's a "constitutionally independent" officer who views on most policy matters are similar to Murphy's. (New York's attorney general is an elected position.)

But Grewal noted, "I'm not shy about stepping up when the rights of New Jersey are under attack. Whether that vaults us into a leadership role or not, we will do it when it is necessary."

The Trump resistance

If there had been a leadership role for the multi-state resistance, the Murphy administration could easily be seen as aggressively auditioning for it.

Grewal, the former Bergen County prosecutor, has become something of a full-time anti-Trump activist, reacting to Trump's hard-line excesses almost on a weekly basis. His office has filed suit seeking to halt Trump's ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.

He joined efforts to halt Texas' attempts to strike down the Affordable Care Act, and to overturn Trump's ban on transgender members of the military.

When Trump tried to add citizenship question to the census survey, Grewal filed a brief to reverse it. Same with attempts to roll back auto emissions standards. And when Grewal's office lent its support to San Francisco in its challenge to Trump’s executive order restricting funding to “fair and welcoming jurisdictions.”

Then there is Murphy's push for tougher gun restrictions, a crusade prompted largely by Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress' resistance to pass tougher restrictions in the wake of mass shooting tragedies in Las Vegas and Florida. New Jersey has entered a gun-control compact with New York and other northeast states.

Past New Jersey attorneys general only occasionally took legal action at the federal government, but the Trump's hard-line agenda is prompting Grewal to reset the office's focus. He has brought in two former Supreme Court clerks and a clerk from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to oversee the effort. And lawyers hroughout the Department of Law and Public Safety have also been assigned.

But Grewal asserted that New Jersey has taken roughly 40 actions in response to Trump, far less than the 100 or so lodged under Schneiderman in New York.

"We are not reflexively anti-Trump,'' Grewal said.

Not yet, maybe. But waging nonstop legal war on Trump is also good politics. It helps New Jersey Democratic candidates for Congress this year who are hoping to ride the anti-Trump wave. It helps Murphy continue his transformation from a Goldman Sach's salesman to a liberal firebrand, more in the mold of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

It may not matter much in Murphy's state budget negotiations with legislators, who are more concerned about property tax relief than relief from Trump.

Yet, Murphy says the budget battle is early, only in the middle innings of a game that ends on June 30. But Trump will be a useful foil for a much longer game.