SEATTLE — Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown warned in mid-April that the Trump administration’s actions put the country near the “precipice of a constitutional crisis.”
His comments alongside fellow state attorneys general in Colorado came shortly after the White House defied court orders to return a Maryland man the federal government had wrongfully sent to El Salvador under the president’s immigration crackdown.
Six weeks later, Brown shies away from using that term, but says President Donald Trump’s disregard for some court rulings, especially in immigration cases, has made the circumstances around how he is wielding executive power “much more dangerous.”
“Whether or not we’re in a constitutional crisis, you know, that’s somewhat of an academic debate,” the Democratic attorney general told reporters before a town hall Monday alongside his counterparts from Oregon and California. “In my mind, we are in a crisis. Call it what you want.”
It’s been a whirlwind few months for Brown, who took office in January. Later that month, the day after Trump took office, Brown sued over the president’s executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship.
Since then, he’s filed 19 more lawsuits, over threats to gender-affirming care, election systems and cuts to a host of federal agencies and funding opportunities. Some of that litigation is playing out in federal courtrooms in Seattle.
Those cases have led to court orders blocking Trump’s actions, but are not fully settled.
Oregon and California are plaintiffs in even more lawsuits than Washington.
Brown guaranteed more litigation to come.
At Monday’s event in Seattle, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield recalled a meeting he had with his governor, Tina Kotek, in January. She didn’t want him to be the next Bob Ferguson, who during Trump’s first term served as Washington attorney general and brought dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration. This raised Ferguson’s profile before he was elected governor last year.
“During the first Trump presidency, I kept looking on the news all the time, and I kept seeing Bob Ferguson every single day,” Kotek told Rayfield. “You’re not going to do that to me, are you?”
Rayfield told the crowd, “I stand here in Washington to tell you I am the Oregon version of Bob Ferguson.”
At the town hall, the trio of western states’ top legal officials heard concerns from locals about cut public health funding, increasingly brazen immigration enforcement, disinvestment in climate policy, and congressional attacks on reproductive health care.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta acknowledged that it’s a heavy time for people opposed to Trump.
”We shouldn’t feel hopeless, because we’re not helpless,” he added. “We have power.”
Where things stand
Last month, Brown was in Washington, D.C., when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over challenges to Trump’s order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship. The arguments focused on the legal issue of lower court orders blocking actions nationwide, versus only in the places from which plaintiffs are suing. The justices haven’t yet ruled on the matter.
Meanwhile, Brown’s office will be in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle on Wednesday, arguing to maintain such a preliminary injunction indefinitely stopping the federal government from implementing the birthright citizenship order.
The attorney general has also been at the forefront of defending so-called “sanctuary” policies that states and cities have enacted to stop local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. Brown said his lawsuit against an eastern Washington county that aided immigration agents was “the most difficult case that I have had to bring.”
Last week, the Trump administration included Washington, about three dozen of the state’s counties and a handful of cities on a nationwide list of sanctuary jurisdictions that it feels hinder the work of immigration enforcement. Listed on the inventory was the nonexistent “Swinomish County.” The president has threatened to withhold federal funding from these state and local governments.
Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security took down the list’s webpage amid pushback from police officials.
In a call Monday, Brown and other attorneys general laughed over the administration’s sloppiness.
“We will survive Donald Trump,” Brown said. Still, he felt the need to knock on wood after saying Trump wouldn’t be on the ballot in 2028.
This story was originally published in the Washington State Standard.
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