Washington, DC – Last week, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield was joined by Arizona AG Kris Mayes as they held the latest in a series of multi-AG Community Impact Hearings. Both AG Rayfield and AG Mayes heard from constituents worried about how the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts would impact Social Security, Medicaid, unions, and food assistance programs like food banks – which many Oregonions rely on. 

“‘We have 23 Democratic attorneys general in America today who are fighting like hell to make sure that we protect and preserve this beautiful, precious, irreplaceable democracy of ours,’” Kris Mayes told the town hall.

Key highlights from Oregon Capital Chronicle:

• “Federal judges in nearly every case have issued temporary restraining orders blocking Trump efforts such as ending birthright citizenship and attempts to cut research funding to the National Institutes of Health.”

• “Event moderator Melissa Unger…described the states’ attorneys general as the ‘last line of defense when it comes to protecting our rights and our freedoms as Oregonians.’”

• “The attorneys general told the crowd they would continue to sue the Trump administration for unconstitutional and illegal harm.”

• “‘It’s people like that who are willing to tell their stories, like you, that are willing to come here and tell your stories, that help us do our job and that help us protect our democracy,’ Rayfield said.”

• “‘We have something called the separation of powers, and that is really what is at the bottom of all of these cases, and what President Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk and DOGE are violating week after week after week,’ Mayes told the crowd. ‘We do not have a king in this country. We do not have a king.’”

Key highlights from Oregon Live/The Oregonian: 

• “‘(Trump) does not have the ability to jump in a time machine, go back hundreds of years, become a king and avoid and elude oversight,’ Rayfield said at the beginning of the town hall. ‘Democracy just doesn’t work that way.’”

• “At the town hall, numerous individuals and representatives from unions and political advocacy groups encouraged each other, as well as Rayfield and Mayes, to continue standing up to the Trump administration.”

• “‘I did not run for office so that I could sue Donald Trump,” Rayfield told reporters before the town hall. ‘But this is where we’re at, with an unconstitutional and often illegal presidency that seems hell bent on destroying 250 years of American government.’”

• “‘The president won’t listen to the people of the United States,’ Rayfield told the audience Thursday. ‘We will do it for him.’”

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