Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield reflected on one year of court battles with the Trump administration while speaking in Eugene Tuesday.
Rayfield, a Democrat elected in 2024, addressed a League of Women Voters of Lane County event hours before the President’s State of the Union speech.
Over the past year, Oregon has blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard and accessing sensitive voter data, among other wins in court.
Rayfield thanked state lawmakers Tuesday for letting his department build a new team, in order to combat what he calls federal overreach. He said it's felt like building a plane while flying it.
"We knew from the first Trump administration that the things that you say during an election you're going to follow through with once you're in office," said Rayfield. "And we needed to be prepared, and we needed dedicated attorneys and staff ready for that moment. And I wish that we were wrong, but it turns out we were not."
Rayfield said he was hopeful that following years won't feature the same level of "stress-testing" of the country's democratic institutions. But he said Oregon would continue to fight.
“I don't want Oregon to just be a ‘me too’ state, right? So other states file things and we're like, ‘yeah, let's join,'" said Rayfield. "I believe Oregon has an obligation and a commitment to lead this fight because of who we are.”
At the same time, he said the state's justice department is still prioritizing local issues. Oregon has doubled its staff doing consumer protection work, in hopes of filling gaps created by cuts at the federal level.
Rayfield said he also wants the state justice department to help local governments that are having a difficult time funding law enforcement with limited budgets.
