SEATTLE—All three West Coast Attorney Generals gathered in Seattle on Monday, June 3, for a press conference and Community Impact Town Hall where they outlined their collaborative efforts to defend democracy and uphold the rule of law, highlighting recent victories in consumer protection and voting-rights enforcement, and discussed ongoing challenges in holding powerful interests accountable.
“We are in a very unique moment in this country and right it is more important than ever to have people standing up to fight back, to lead, and to address some of the harms we are seeing all across this country,” said Nick Brown, Washington State Attorney General. “I cannot think of any other position that I would rather be in, because Attorney Generals across this country are standing up to fight back against the lawlessness of the Trump administration, to address the harms we see in our state, and to make sure that we reaffirm the principles of fairness, justice, and the rule of law.”
Joining Brown was newly elected Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who, like Brown, has been serving since the beginning of the year, and served as Speaker of the House and Chair of the Ways and Means Committee prior to his term, as well as Rob Bonta, Attorney General for the State of California.
Bonta was sworn in as California’s 34th Attorney General in 2021 – the first person of Filipino descent to occupy the position. Bonta’s passion for justice stems from his parents who fought on the frontlines of some of America’s most important social justice movements. Bonta decided to practice law to fight to help right the historic wrongs and fight for those who have been harmed. Prior to being elected California Attorney General he served as the Deputy City Attorney for the City of San Francisco.
Monday’s town hall is the sixth time these Attorney Generals, all Democrats, have gathered in this type of format to hear from the public directly to ensure they are representing their respective state’s best interests.
Prior to the town hall the Attorney Generals took questions from members of the press where AG Brown declared the country to be in a time of crisis.
“We are in a crisis because we have a President that disregards the laws, who disregards the separation of powers, who does not care about precedent or constitutional authority – he does what he wants, and he is doing it with such brazen disregard for the truth,” said Brown.
Washington State, joined by several other Democratic states across the nation, have led a series of legal challenges against the Trump Administration.
First to speak, following AG Brown’s opening remarks, was AG Rayfield who shared a story about a conversation he had with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek where she shared that during the first Trump Administration she kept seeing then-Washington AG, now Governor, Bob Ferguson on the news. With 23 current lawsuits filed against the Trump Administration Rayfield compared himself to “Oregon’s Bob Ferguson.”
Ferguson sued the federal government 97 times between 2017 and 2021.
“Back east we have an administration that’s constantly making decisions in the dark without public input. That is not how a democracy is supposed to work,” said Rayfield.
California has also filed 23 lawsuits against the Trump Administration. With 19 weeks into Trump’s second term this equates to nearly one lawsuit a week. These include, but are now limited to, challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship, protecting essential federal funding for healthcare, housing, food, college, and disaster relief, and non-elected private citizen Elon Musk’s access to sensitive information.
AG Bonta, the son of a Filipina immigrant, saw firsthand what it was like when a Dictator took over his family’s country, he said, and what it meant to him and his family to see the people fight back.
“I learned from an early age that people power is the most potent power that there is. And Trump’s bosses are not his billionaire buddies or greedy corporations, his bosses are you, and me, and us – the American people,” said AG Bonta. “The people will always have the first and last word…Democracy thrives on activism and participation and engagement. It dies with neglect, and it dies in the dark with apathy.”
During the public portion of Monday’s town hall, a cancer researcher, Paul Nghiem, who specializes in a rare but aggressive strain of skin cancer, noted that his research was approved for funding by the NIH prior to the Trump administration but was halted after Trump’s federal spending cuts. These funds, Nghiem added, mean life or death for his patients who are currently awaiting treatment.
AG Brown responded saying this is a perfect example of some of the criticism he gets by State Republicans for focusing on national issues instead of local, adding that in cases like Nghiem’s – where federal spendings cuts puts Washington lives at stake – the fight at the national level has direct impacts for Washington residents.
Other topics of conversation from the public involved environmental issues, diversity, equity, and inclusion, Planned Parenthood closures and abortion, immigrants and ICE, healthcare, police accountability, and more.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
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