Oregon’s Rookie Attorney General Is Making His Living Suing Donald Trump

This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.

From the moment Attorney General Dan Rayfield took office in January, the Oregon Department of Justice has been engaged in a nearly full-time battle with President Donald Trump’s administration.

Rayfield, 46, a Democrat from Corvallis, came to the job after 10 years in the Oregon House. He rose quickly in the Legislature, serving two terms as co-chair of the budget-writing Joint Committee on Ways and Means, and in his final term, he succeeded Gov. Tina Kotek as House speaker.

A smiley former trial lawyer who prefers playing video games to golf, Rayfield ran on a fairly standard platform: bolstering public safety (a promise that polls well but has little to do with the actual job), chasing polluters, and protecting vulnerable Oregonians.

After Trump’s victory, however, the game plan changed completely. Rayfield’s office has led or signed onto about 40 federal lawsuits against the Trump administration on issues that affect all states and Oregon counties—such as the freezing of federal funds and the cutoff of food stamps or whether the president has usurped Congress’ powers to levy tariffs—to more location-specific issues such as the president’s desire to send troops to South Portland and to site a detention facility in Newport and move a prized U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter 100 miles south of the state’s biggest commercial fishing fleet.

Several of the lawsuits are gaining traction: The U.S. Supreme Court seemed receptive to Oregon’s argument on tariffs last month; there are still more inflatable animals than troops patrolling Portland streets; and a federal judge just put the brakes on the helicopter relocation—although all results are subject to further action.

The attendant publicity and a well-oiled communications effort have elevated Rayfield’s profile and made him a leading prospect for higher office someday.

We asked him to stop by OJP’s office at the end of a busy Monday for an interview that has been edited for brevity and clarity.

OJP: You went from running a two-person law office to leading the Oregon Department of Justice, the state’s largest law firm, with 1,600 employees. What has surprised you the most so far?

Dan Rayfield: When I ran for AG, I don’t think any of us thought we would be in this moment, in this time with our democracy, and that we would have filed 40 lawsuits against the Trump administration. I would have told you that that is absurd. I would have told you that was hyperpartisan. I would have used many adjectives to describe where we’re at. So it feels absolutely wild to me to be in this moment.

We understand you’ve hired several lawyers from the federal government. How many people have you brought in, and what are they doing?

Nine, so far. There has been an embarrassment of riches in terms of these folks available from federal service. They are working on consumer protection and federal issues. For example, Oregon has really benefited from their work on our National Guard case.

Which of the federal lawsuits would you most like Oregonians to know about, and why?

I’d say the tariff case impacts most all of us. We’re a trade-dependent state with a lot of small businesses. Oregon led in that case, so that one feels incredibly meaningful to me.

Most of these cases are filed on behalf of many states. How do you and the other attorneys general decide who leads and who plays a supporting role?

It’s a question of staff and organizational structure. Are we set up in terms of investigating or not investigating or researching certain things? Sometimes your team might already have a background in a given area. For instance, Oregon has a background in trade law, so that helped with tariffs. I’m also really looking at the impact of a given issue in Oregon, and how that plays out. We have an ecosystem among attorney general’s offices, and you couldn’t say, “Oregon, you’re going to lead on all the cases,” right? We’d be overwhelmed. If you’re in the neighborhood picking up trash, we all have an equal responsibility to keep the neighborhood clean. It’s similar with attorneys general. No one person can keep the neighborhood clean.

What are your criteria for taking a case?

Impact and values: Working families, affordability, consumers, seniors, those translate a lot into the federal work we’re doing. In the Legislature, I focused on institutional and structural reforms that would strengthen democracy. So when I see things that are going on right now federally that are attacking democratic institutions, it’s easy to get excited about protecting them.

What else is DOJ doing beyond federal lawsuits?

Public safety and organized crime. We started a pilot project in Washington County with District Attorney Kevin Barton and local law enforcement. They already have some drug trafficking work that’s going on out there. So we’re looking at illicit massage parlors, human trafficking, and organized retail theft. We’ve also doubled the size of our consumer protection section.

Who does the Department of Justice serve—the state or individual Oregonians?

It does both. That creates some interesting ethical conversations because we’re the Department of Justice and how you define justice matters. Let’s take a case where the state screwed up: a state employee driving a state vehicle rear-ends another vehicle. We admit liability. If you are purely serving the state’s interests, maybe I could negotiate $1,000 of lost wages down to $900 and the state’s $100 better off. That’s what an insurance company might do, but I would argue that it is not justice. How do we as a state also honor the Oregonian who was harmed under those circumstances? I’m not going to be the attorney general that’s going to drag people through the mud just to try and get a better deal for taxpayers.

The Department of Corrections recently released a number of inmates and then had to have them rearrested. Did your agency give bad advice in that case?

I don’t believe that our agency gave bad advice. When we give advice, the decision is always up to the agency. We say if you go in a particular direction, here are the risks. Sometimes, you might be able to offer multiple approaches. That’s what we tried to give to the Department of Corrections.

When you got elected in 2024, your Republican opponent, Will Lathrop, got almost 46% of the vote. Nearly 1 million Oregonians voted for him and probably frequently agree with the president. How do you weigh that?

Whenever you serve in a statewide role, you serve all Oregonians. Trump supporters might say, “I like what the president is doing.” My response is, that’s wonderful, but some of the things that he is doing are policy choices beyond his authority and not allowed for under the executive action.

To be clear, you’re saying that when you’ve brought lawsuits, it’s because you believe the president or his administration is violating a law?

Unquestionably. It’s not a philosophical or political distinction, it’s a legal distinction. My first question is, are Oregonians being harmed? In some cases, the president pulled federal funding improperly. Some of his policies, like the tariffs, increase costs. And some of them are foundational, like trying to end birthright citizenship. So you’ve got this dynamic, like his trying to move the Coast Guard helicopter from Newport, where people are being harmed. And you ask, has the law been violated, or is the Constitution being violated? If the answer is yes, and the state has standing to move forward, then we will move forward.

Which lawsuit has generated the most pushback from Oregonians?

Recently, it was the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program lawsuit, where we’re talking about asylum and refugee status—legal residents—where the federal government pulled benefits back. We’ve definitely had some people who will say if you are not a U.S. citizen, even though you’re a lawful resident, we don’t think you should get food assistance. That’s a policy decision for Congress, not for the president.

The National Guard question got heated. There are a lot of people who feel OK having the military on our streets. The amount of people that feel that way was a little bit shocking to me.

What’s your relationship like with U.S. Attorney for Oregon Scott Bradford?

I have met him. He seems like a very nice, straightforward man, but we’re not socializing on the weekends or playing video games together. Jokes aside, in the criminal context, there absolutely are still conversations going on between our offices. I have not seen anything where all of a sudden the door has been shut when we need certain things or they need certain things.

What’s next for you?

I gotta get home and bake my sourdough bread.

Really?

Life is stressful. You have to try and find time to do different things. My wife and I and some friends took a sourdough bread class together, so I have the sourdough starter. We have a loaf that we cold-fermented in the fridge last night, so I’m gonna go ahead and put that in the oven.