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MICHAEL DUNNE: I’m Michael Dunne. It's hard enough being a state attorney general and executing the official duties of the office, running a large consumer protection operation, defending the state when legal challenges arise, and also litigating major crimes like sex trafficking and fraud, but with one of the most activist and legally questionable presidents in modern history, firing off executive orders at a breakneck pace, the job of state attorney general is akin to being a goalie defending against multiple players firing multiple soccer balls at the net. Today on the show, you'll hear from Oregon Attorney General, Dan Rayfield and hear how he and his team are playing defense against the Trump administration while still serving the state and people as Oregon's lead attorney. Then in the last part of the show, we'll learn about the success of the community bike ride share program. Oregon's Attorney General, Dan Rayfield, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
DAN RAYFIELD: Absolutely always a pleasure to be here.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I would just like to start with an update on some of the lawsuits that you've either filed or joined with against executive actions.
DAN RAYFIELD: Yeah, and there are a ton of things going on at the Department of Justice right from, you know, consumer protection to keeping communities safe. And then this one category that you kind of talked about is, how do you really enforce Oregon's values at a time when you have a Trump administration that continues to push the bounds of the constitutionality of some of their actions? The way that I organize it, and just top lines is this, we're involved in 29 lawsuits right now against the federal administration, and that's not something that I ever thought was even a possibility when I first ran for this office, when I was sworn in, frankly, a month into tenure, I didn't think we would be where we are today in in those lawsuits, wait for folks to kind of organize them in their head. There's a ton of them that involve funding for various programs across this state, and it's funding that comes into our state. It's funding that our state relies upon for essential services, and so we're protecting, right now about $3.3 billion of funding coming into this state. Then you've got other actions that just impact Oregonians, right? I think the best example of that is a case that Oregon's leading on, which is the tariffs that President Trump illegally put into place, and so those are something that is winding its way through the courts, and we're engaged in kind of this other area with respect to the federal administration. Another good example that would be birthright citizenship, right? That's another action that is not directly tied. It is tied to funding, but it's not as directly tied in a way you might think of, say, grant funding. So that's kind of how we think about them.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You've also been working with other attorney generals in different states. Does that help this idea that you have other colleagues, office holders, such as yourself, bringing suits against the Trump administration? Is it a situation, kind of, for lack of a better phrase, the more the merrier, because that provides a certain heft to what you're trying to do?
DAN RAYFIELD: It definitely provides heft and lends credibility to what's going on in the country, right when you have a group of lawyers in, you know, 23 states or more saying, hey, this should not occur, or this is, you know, a violation of the Constitution that does carry weight at the same time, it's incredibly important with respect to all this litigation and All the impacts to our state. It takes resources to be able to move forward, and you'll hold the line on so many of these different cases. And so, we're able to partner with each other and share resources. Where Oregon's, you know, led and developed the with Arizona, the tariff case, you have, you know, different cases that really originated and are led by other states, right, where we are in more of a support role, where we're making sure that every case, all the values that we're really working and pinging on, you know, are fully represented, you know, efficiently and effectively in court.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, obviously, Oregon is well known as a sanctuary state, and there are many municipalities inside Oregon that are sanctuary cities. I wanted to talk to you about the White House's overtures about trying to do something to end sanctuary laws. Can you sort of talk about how your office would respond, how Oregon can protect its sanctuary Law status?
DAN RAYFIELD: I think for everybody to just kind of ground themselves when we think about sanctuary laws in multitude of states across this country, ours and Oregon were the first to be passed, and they have coexisted peacefully for multiple presidential administrations, Democrats and Republicans in the spirit of these laws truly are founded in the Constitution, is that state resources, our state taxpayer dollars, our state resources, should be used for enforcing state laws. Think about murder. Think about robbery, other different types of state crimes in a public safety space. And what you don't want is the federal government coming in and saying you've got to use your state resources, those states taxpayer resources, for things that are not a state responsibility, enforcing federal law, specifically, in this case, your immigration laws, that's a federal responsibility as they interact, and that's why these laws have peacefully coexisted for so long. During the first Trump administration, they tried to tie funding to our sanctuary status laws, and we won very clearly in the court system when they tried to do that. You know, they may try and continue to go down that road and push that. I do anticipate if they do, we'll be filing another lawsuit to enforce our laws. And really what we're doing is enforcing the bounds of the US Constitution in this space, and I expect that we will prevail under those circumstances again, because there is this separation under our constitution that doesn't allow the federal government to come in and what they say is a commandeer state resources for federal purposes.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know by office, but also by personality, you're a very public figure. You like meeting with members of the public, and I know that you're hosting town halls and whatnot. I'd love to hear what constituents are telling you about what's happening with the Trump administration, but also just sort of what's happening with what you're doing, what your office is doing to protect Oregon?
DAN RAYFIELD: Now, Michael, you did say I love meeting with people in the public. I also love my alone time. Okay, put it on a weekend, I love it!
MICHAEL DUNNE: laughs.
DAN RAYFIELD: But we've been holding town halls across Oregon and just talking to people in different communities, because it's incredibly important for us, representing all Oregonians, to hear how some of these federal actions are impacting them, so we can better do our jobs and a lot of the decisions that are going on back east are being done in a closed room without windows, with these executive orders, without public input. And that's not how a democracy is meant to occur. And so, when we get into these town halls, as we're talking to people, people are talking to us all the various ways that they're being impacted from the federal workforce right in the chilling impact that that is having, whether it's in the Social Security Administration or whether that is a Department of Forestry. We're hearing about cuts to health care, education, Medicaid, reproductive health care comes up in every single one of these town halls. So, it's really varied. You hear from your local elected officials, people that we trust, right, whether they're on a school board or whether they are with the city or a county and grants that are being impacted in the public safety space that these communities rely upon to keep their citizens safe. So, it is really varied in the type of things we're hearing right now. And we're obviously today, we're in Lincoln City, where our town hall is, and I, you know, I expect to hear quite a bit about, you've got the cuts going to NOAA, right? Tsunami monitoring, ocean data, Coast Guard, a whole bunch of other things. I think it's going to be really interesting to hear what the community says today.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, and I won't pretend to necessarily understand all the minutia of it, but a recent Supreme Court ruling, it seemed to limit lower court power to sort of rein in presidential action. And I'd love for you to kind of explain what happened there and what might be those impacts, especially in terms of, you know, staying executive actions, that might have a legally questionable glide path, if you could talk about that, which would be instructive for our audience.
DAN RAYFIELD: I mean, this is an interesting ruling. It's in the weeds, so everybody's got to bear with me as we get into this. Effectively, what you had is a Supreme Court decision that limited this kind of universal, you know, nationwide injunctions. And I think it's always interesting to know what you had in prior. You know, in the Biden administration and prior administrations, you've had different people with different political persuasions have different feelings on what really the outcome should be. I think the Supreme Court's decision is disappointing. I do think that there are situations where the current system and being able to have access to these nationwide injunctions is incredibly impactful and provides relief across the nation at a very consistent and meaningful way. You think about tariffs, how could you limit tariffs in a way that you know impacts some states and doesn't it's not that's a fiction. However, I don't think we should read too much into this, because there are other avenues that we will be able to obtain broad relief when necessary. And so, the good example of that is you saw a lawsuit. It was a class action that was filed, goodness gracious that what felt like minutes after the Supreme Court decision really seeking broad relief for the birthright citizenship case, and so that is something that, again, I think there are still tools out there to get that broad relief. It just changes the landscape a little bit. And I think there are, you know, questions that the court had been grappling with on, you know, these universal, nationwide injunctions, and now at least we have a path of where we're headed. I think it is going to be very interesting for states that have Republican attorneys general versus states that have democratic attorneys general, because a lot of Republican attorneys general are not joining some of these lawsuits specifically on the funding. And so, if we get injunctive relief that only applies to democratic states. Things to be fascinating to watch. What do these Republican states do when those budget shortfalls really start to hit home on programs that I absolutely know, that Democrats and Republicans alike both need in their communities.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Is it hard, given the sheer volume of action coming from the White House due to executive orders and whatnot? I know, imagine there's a lot that you want to get done as attorney general, for lack of a better phrase, to play some offense. But does having to defend so much coming having to play defense, if you will. How hard is it just to kind of keep everybody rowing in the same direction?
DAN RAYFIELD: I don't think that we have that issue in Oregon. We have an amazing team at the Department of Justice that's working on our federal oversight and accountability stuff, and that means that they have to put up with me when I've got questions or ideas. Was like, Hey, let's dig into this a little bit further. So right now, I'm very concerned about the Medicaid funding cuts on the federal level that just passed, and Trump's bill, signature bill, is going to cut health care folks. I think there's avenues that we need to explore and look at about whether what they are doing and how they're targeting certain states that just went to the expansion, whether that's legal, and whether we've got a team of folks that have the bandwidth to do that. At the same time, earlier today, I was at a conference where we're really trying to enforce and keep our community safe when it comes to, you know, enforcing our drug laws and our drug trafficking problems that we have in this state, and so you have to be able to fire on all cylinders. It's an incredibly dynamic job. It's an incredibly dynamic agency, where we, you know, later on today, we'll be talking about consumer protection work that we're doing across this state. So, I feel fortunate to be a part of a pretty amazing team of people we've been able to assemble, or a wonderful team to kind of be able to do all of these things in a way that I don't think you know, and whether the President, you know, wanted this or not, right? It's not impacting the other essential responsibilities that we have here at the Oregon Department of Justice.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, veering away from the Trump administration for a second. I did want to give you the opportunity to tell our listeners, give us an update on what's happening with measure 114?
DAN RAYFIELD: Yeah. And so, for folks that don't remember, measure 114 was a bill that was not a bill. It was a measure passed by voters for gun violence prevention. And so, this is something that once it was passed, and as you kind of know, in a political, politically, uh, tenuous environment, there are a lot of arguments in the courts with respect to trying to overturn or saying that the measure passed by voters was unconstitutional. And we have two different challenges, one going through the state court, and one going through federal court right now, and we've been receiving some positive rulings, like we were just received a positive ruling for the Oregon Court of Appeals, but these are going to continue to be going through the appellate process on the federal side as well as the state side, and our responsibility to the Department of Justice is to uphold the laws that Oregonians have passed under these circumstances, and that's the role that we're providing right now, especially when it comes to these common sense gun safety measures that are moving through.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Attorney General, my last question for you is this, you and I spoke a few months ago, and I did ask the question about this, this, this sort of phraseology of a constitutional crisis. And if my memory serves you, said we're not there yet. You know, I think that there's still a lot of guardrails in place. I did want to check in. You know, a few months later, and I don't know how many dozens or hundreds of executive orders that have come down through the White House, are we getting closer to that mythological constitutional crisis? What's your view on that?
DAN RAYFIELD: We always got to be careful about being the frog in boiling water, right? I think we should always be having that in the back of our head. I still think we are not at a constitutional crisis. Now that doesn't mean that I don't believe that the Trump administration is pushing the bounds. Right? That doesn't mean that I don't believe that they are doing or attempting to do things that are unconstitutional, because I think they are. What I do believe, though, is in all of the cases that we've been filing, again, we've got 29 cases going on right now. We have courts that are consistently citing against the administration and holding them in check. Does that mean we win every case? No, but what it does mean is that in a significant, overwhelming majority of these cases, you have judges appointed by Republicans. We've had judges appointed by Trump, ruling consistently and giving relief, which is a pretty high bar when you get a preliminary injunction to be able to get that level of relief, showing that the Trump administration is taking actions that are at odds with the Constitution, and so when we have one of the checks and balances working, I think that's that, to me, is where I feel good. I think you start getting a little bit closer, and you get nervous when you have one of those branches of government that is threatening an essential check and balance that we have relied upon in our Constitution, the judiciary, right? And it makes me incredibly nervous. And when you have Congress trying to influence or threaten the judiciary when you have the President doing the exact same thing. That's not the way that this was supposed to work. It's a co-equal branch of government. So that stuff makes me incredibly nervous, but right now, that check on the power is working, and so I think the next year is going to be incredibly important as a lot of these decisions start to wind up through the Supreme Court.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Oregon Attorney General, Dan Rayfield, it's always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for your time.
DAN RAYFIELD: Hey, thanks, Michael. We'll talk to you soon.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Many people would say our community is bike friendly, and numbers from the largest ride share program bear that out. Nathan Wilk, one of our reporters here at KLCC, always good to talk to you. Thanks for coming in and chatting.
NATHAN WILK: Thanks for having me. Michael.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You did this piece about the PeaceHealth, blue bike program. Give our audience kind of a general overview of what's happening with this program.
NATHAN WILK: Right To start, you know, here in Eugene and Springfield, since last year, there is a rentable bike service where, essentially, you can use an app, pick up a bike from a designated bike rack, ride it around for, you know, 15 minutes an hour, to your location, and then park it. And, you know, pay a small fee per ride or for a subscription. And so, you know, some new information came out in terms of another surge of ridership this year. So far in the first six months, Brody Hilton, the executive director of Cascadia mobility, told me there were 150,000 rides, and that being a 60,000 year over year increase from the same period last year.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Wow, that's pretty impressive. Any indication of why the surge is just more people sort of discovering the service, kind of what might be behind this increase?
NATHAN WILK: Sure. I mean, that's, that's what Brody told me was that he believes it's sort of a domino effect of, you know, there's more there's more people riding bikes. More people are seeing other people ride bikes, and they're becoming curious about the program. You know, there also has been an expansion over time of the number of bike racks that are available. And also, again, last year, really getting into Springfield. You know, previously, if you went to Springfield and left your bike there, you'd have to pay a large fine because it was out of sort of the boundaries that they had set out. And so, they've expanded the boundaries out. And you know that that makes more opportunities.
For people to ride. I'll also say that on campus, as a former UO student, that is a really popular place for people to ride back and forth from classes, and it's an easy way to park if you're just getting from an apartment a couple blocks away.
MICHAEL DUNNE: In reading the article, I think the executive director talked about, you know, ultimately, it's going to sort of reach its peak, and there might be steps necessary to sort of bring in different types of equipment. Is that correct to sort of make it more, even more robust than it is, right?
NATHAN WILK: I mean, in the conversation we had, what he talked about is this, these bikes are aging. You know, there also used to be scooters, super pedestrian scooters in Eugene, and those went away because of an issue with the company nationwide. But, you know, he really talked about, we're going to explore different options, and that could include e bikes, that could include scooters, and, you know, that's something that will really be studied in the future, you know, but part of that is obtaining access to funding to actually expand the service in that way.
MICHAEL DUNNE: One of the things that I saw in your reporting is, in addition to a lot more people riding bikes, there also has been an increase in rates. Talk a little bit about that.
NATHAN WILK: So, the rate to unlock a bike is going up about 50 cents. And, you know, I think when I talked about what some of those regular costs are going towards, you know, what Brody really told me is that those are for, like, regular maintenance of these bikes. I mean, you know, they're being ridden all over Eugene, and, you know, if you look at them on the street, even the photo in the article, you know, some of them can kind of get dented and shut up, you know, because they're just getting regular use. So, yeah, going up from, I think $1 to unlock, to $1.50 and then subscription services remaining the same cost that they are currently.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, well, it's great to hear that more and more people are using them. Nathan Wilk, thanks so much for coming in and chatting with us.
NATHAN WILK: Yeah. Thanks so much, Michael.
MICHAEL DUNNE That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll meet the new police chief of Springfield, who also happens to be the first woman ever to ascend to that position. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon on the record from KLCC. Thanks for listening.
