is a features editor who publishes award-winning stories about law, tech, and internet subcultures. A journalist trained as a lawyer, she has been writing about tech for 10 years.
The sun was already beginning to set as Portlanders in weatherproof jackets and fleeces lined up around Revolution Hall. It wasn’t yet 5PM on a Wednesday but the crowd was gathering well before the town hall was scheduled to begin. Just a day earlier, news outlets reported that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison had been targeted by a federal Justice Department subpoena. Now Ellison was in Portland, at the invitation of Oregon’s attorney general, along with three other Democratic attorneys general, for a town hall. When he was introduced on stage, an auditorium full of Oregonians gave him a standing ovation.
The town hall, said Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, was being held so the AGs could hear what people wanted them to focus on in the coming year. But there was one thing he wanted everyone to hear: “We are not backing down. There is no way in hell we are going to let this president continue to chip away at our rights and our democracy at this time. We are going to continue to fight for this entire term and do our job as attorneys general.”
“There is no way in hell we are going to let this president continue to chip away at our rights and our democracy”
This was the overall theme of the evening. “Whenever you’re confronted by a bully like Donald Trump, if you think by keeping your head down and being quiet, being sweet, nice, that he’s not gonna stomp all over you, you are wrong,” said Ellison. “The only solution is to stand up, fight back, and protect your own.”
“If the president crosses the line, violates the law, violates the Constitution, we’re gonna fight him,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Period. Full stop. No passes. Every single time.”
“A Republican-led Congress is doing nothing,” Bonta said. “They are supine. They are not a check… but we’re a check. We’re the check when you need the checks and the balances.”
The Constitution, Bonta said, was “built for this.” Even if the separation of powers at the federal level had failed, the separation between the federal government and states was still in place. In other words, the last check on Donald Trump was states’ rights.
A year ago, a coalition of Democratic state AGs filed the first of many lawsuits against the second Trump administration, seeking an injunction against an executive order that purportedly ended birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is in the US Constitution. It is not possible for the president to change the Constitution by fiat. In other words, the executive order — like so many things yet to come — was complete bullshit.
The AGs sued Trump the very next day. Having gotten a good sense of what Trump was capable of in his first term, the state AGs began to work together well in advance, getting on daily phone calls. There were 23 AGs total (24, now), but they were working together smoothly, said Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez. “What we’re doing is too serious, too important to let our own egos get in our way.” The phone calls slowed down over time but their staffers continued to be in near constant communication.
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