Five attorneys general and Portland-based writer Cheryl Strayed gathered for a town hall in Portland on Wednesday. (Photo by Shaanth Nanguneri/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
PORTLAND, Ore.— Five Democratic attorneys general who have waged high-profile legal battles against the federal government had a clear message on Wednesday ahead of the upcoming midterm elections: The fight against President Donald Trump’s administration has only just begun.
“There is no way in hell we are going to let this president continue to chip away at our rights, at our democracy at this time. We’re going to continue to fight for this entire term and do our job as attorneys general,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield told a hall filled with hundreds of attendees. “And what we need you to do — this is a partnership in all communities, you have a voice, you must exercise it.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison joined Rayfield at Portland’s Revolution Hall, with the United States and Oregon state flag behind them as they discussed their response to executive federal overreach.
The town hall — moderated by Portland-based writer Cheryl Strayed — came exactly a year after Oregon signed onto its first federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, joining Arizona, Washington and Illinois to sue over its attempt at ending birthright citizenship.
Questions from constituents to the attorneys general about their tools and next steps for responding to federal overreach dominated the town hall, covering issues such as threats to funding for child care, abortion and civil rights violations by immigration agents. Among those in the audience was former Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who often joined other states in their lawsuits against the previous iteration of the Trump administration.
Ellison told reporters Wednesday before the town hall that “we’re all” considering the issue of election integrity ahead of the 2026 midterm season, during which Democrats could make significant gains in the face of an unpopular Republican-controlled White House and Congress as well as favorable special election results.
The U.S. Department of Justice, in the meantime, has sued more than 20 states seeking unredacted information about each state’s voter rolls, according to the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice. A federal judge in Oregon indicated last week that he’ll block the federal government from obtaining personal information, including driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers for more than 3 million Oregon voters.
“We’re very well aware that it is an election year midterm, and that everybody’s reading the polls, and some folks want to forestall the voter’s will,” Ellison told reporters. “So we’re all concerned about that.”
The attorneys general stressed that they took their adversarial legal approach to secure billions of dollars in threatened funding and civil rights for their constituents. They encouraged their Republican counterparts in other states to join them.
“Donald Trump decides when and if we will sue him. If he breaks the law, we sue. If he doesn’t break the law, we don’t sue. It’s really that simple,” Bonta told attendees. “So he decided he wanted to get sued more than once a week, and so we obliged and sued him.”
Since President Donald Trump took office a year ago, Oregon has sued his administration more than 50 times, often teaming up with other Democratic states to prevent federal funding cuts and to block new policies from disproportionately impacting the environment, immigrants and people seeking gender-affirming care.
Those moves have secured billions of dollars in funding meant for Oregon Health & Science University research, electric vehicle infrastructure, sexual health education programs and education programs supporting low-income and unhoused students. Oregon attorneys also secured a November court order permanently blocking Trump’s attempted deployment of the National Guard to Portland in late September, though the case is being appealed.
Ellison, who received a thunderous standing ovation, said the Trump administration has sent more than 3,500 people working as immigration agents to Minnesota, a figure he described as wholly disproportionate.
“What has happened is that there are way more people that are needed to carry out that task. So what are these 3500 doing?” Ellison said. “They’re harassing everybody in our state. They’re standing outside of grocery stores, demanding to people show their papers, people who are citizens, people who are not citizens, but who have legal status, anybody who speaks accented English.”
AGs provide update on shootings
Two of the attorneys general, Rayfield and Ellison, have also made headlines this month for their involvement in independent state-backed investigations into shootings by federal agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Those agents enjoy significant criminal immunity from state prosecutions under an 1890 U.S. Supreme Court precedent, but legal experts say that protection is not absolute when they act outside the reasonable scope of their authority.
In Oregon, U.S. Border Patrol shot and wounded two Venezuelan nationals on Jan. 8 who were later charged for allegedly assaulting a federal officer with a vehicle and illegally entering the United States. Rayfield subsequently announced that he would investigate whether any agents acted outside the scope of their authority, aligning with a previous warning he and three other Portland metro-area district attorneys issued to the federal government over concerns of excessive force by federal agents.
One day prior to that, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota.
After the federal government effectively froze out local and state prosecutors from an investigation into the shooting, Ellison and the Hennepin County’s local prosecutor’s office opened a public portal for individuals to submit photos, evidence and videos that could help prosecutors better grasp the case, the Minnesota Reformer reported.
The U.S. Department of Justice has since said it will not pursue an investigation into the agent who shot Good, and it has reportedly subpoenaed multiple high-profile Democrats in the state, accusing them of conspiring to impede law enforcement during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Ellison, among those being investigated, has fired back by accusing Trump of deflecting from Good’s killing and weaponizing the justice system against political adversaries.
On Wednesday, Ellison told reporters he was not taking a position on whether Good’s killing merited criminal charges. Instead, he pointed to the resignations of several federal prosecutors in response to a reported push by federal officials to pursue an investigation of Good’s wife.
He confirmed he received a subpoena for documents from his office, but declined to comment beyond saying it was a pending legal matter and that he was looking into all legal recourse possible.
“The federal government is investigating me and others, but they’re not investigating the person who killed Renee Good, and I’m not even saying what the outcome of that investigation should be, no prosecutor should ever say what an investigation should result in before the investigation is completed,” he said. “But it is disturbing that they’re not even investigating at all.”
In Oregon’s case following its subsequent shooting, Rayfield issued a statement saying that he would investigate whether any federal officers acted outside the scope of their authority, in keeping with a November warning he and district attorneys of the state’s three largest counties gave the federal government that the state will investigate and prosecute federal agents who engage in excessive force.
Rayfield told reporters that Oregon is “in a very different situation than Minnesota.” He did not explicitly say whether he had access to the federal government’s evidence in its investigation, but he noted that the Oregon Department of Justice is working with Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez and the Portland Police Bureau.
“We’re really trying to do this sanitized and do it properly,” he said, “which is why I’ve been incredibly quiet on the facts of the investigation.”
Ellison, meanwhile, called Oregon “a beacon to the nation.” He urged people to resist division on the lines of race, gender or class and continue sharing evidence such as video footage.
“Ultimately, this country will be saved by the people of the United States, and so that means you’re protesting, you’re gathering evidence, you’re sharing with us. You communicating with us is actually how we’re going to win,” Ellison said. “You showing up tonight, being present tonight, that’s how we win.”
Commented