Ranking Members Raskin, Durbin Lead Bicameral Spotlight Forum with State Attorneys General on Democrats’ Legal Fight Against Trump Lawlessness

Washington, D.C. (June 24, 2025)—On Monday, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Senator Dick Durbin, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees led a Bicameral Spotlight Forum entitled “Defending the Rights of the People: States and Congressional Allies Fight Back Against Trump’s Constitutional Abuses,” examining Democrats’ legal fight against the Trump Administration’s lawlessness with a panel of Democratic state Attorneys General. 

“We are in a dramatic constitutional confrontation today where every facet of the Framers’ design has been activated to try to save constitutional democracy and freedom,” said Ranking Member Raskin in his opening statement. “The witnesses before us today—the Attorneys General for the people of Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Illinois—are leaders in the fight for the Constitution and federal laws that have been abandoned by the President.”

The hearing featured testimony from: Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minnesota; Attorney General Andrea Campell, Massachusetts; Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Illinois; and Attorney General Matthew Platkin, New Jersey.

Democratic AGs and Democrats in Congress are fighting back against Donald Trump’s attacks on the rights and freedoms of the American people—and are winning in court every day. 

• Ranking Member Raskin said, “Political leaders at the state level are fighting back in court, along with their Democratic allies in Congress, and we are winning this fight every day in courtrooms across America. […] More than 328 lawsuits have been filed since Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and Elon Musk took office, and federal courts across the land have remarkably issued 197 preliminary injunctions and Temporary Restraining Orders against their reign of lawlessness.”
   
• Attorney General Platkin said: “All of this is part of an effort to undermine the rule of law—a  concept that I understand can seem abstract to many, myself included—but I assure you it is not abstract to the people who called our office wondering if their Medicaid card would be accepted by their doctor when President Trump unlawfully froze the health care of 72 million Americans. It was not abstract for the mother who came up to me in tears at my son’s soccer game, wondering if her autistic son’s services were going to be shut off unlawfully. It’s not abstract to the brave law enforcement officers who I’ve spoken to, whose services were unceremoniously slashed overnight. These harms are real. They’re affecting millions of residents in a host of unprecedented ways. And plain and simple, my fellow AG’s and I will not waver in fighting back against the Administration when it violates the law and harms our residents.”
   
• Rep. Hank Johnson explained that Democratic state Attorneys General brought a lawsuit challenging Trump’s cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding authorized by Congress—which threaten to upend life-saving medical research—and won an injunction halting some of those cuts. House Democrats filed an amicus brief challenging these dangerous cuts in a similar case. Attorney General Campbell said that such amicus briefs are “helpful” and given serious consideration by judges in their rulings.
   
• In response to a question from Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon about the injunction halting Trump’s illegal cuts to medical research grants funded by the NIH, Attorney General Campbell said: “I’m always careful in defining how we’re winning, because I never want to discount the real harm that people are suffering and experiencing. […] You can’t just turn back on a clinical trial. […] I am, at the same time, hopeful and optimistic about the response from the courts here—both Democratic and Republican-appointed judges—who recognize the unlawful violations and actions of this Administration to undermine not just the NIH funding in our respective states but the public health infrastructure of our country.”
   
• Rep. Becca Balint explained that the Trump Administration’s cuts to life-saving research grants already authorized by Congress violate not just “the will of Congress—it’s the will of the people. It’s what Americans want us to be doing with our money.” Attorney General Campbell explained that the states’ victory in winning an injunction pausing Trump’s cuts to research grants “is not only indicative of what we can do as is collectively in response to grant funding where they directly cut it off, but also where they’re playing games to threaten that funding. It’s a huge victory.”
   
• On Trump’s unlawful cuts to medical research grants, Rep. Deborah Ross said: “We can’t forget the human face. As I was sitting in this hearing, I heard from a constituent who wanted to know, ‘when’s my trial going to start again? I’m sick, I’m worried.’ And, as we all know, when you guys get these amazing injunctions, you have to show both that the Trump administration has violated the law, […] and you have to show irreparable harm. And this woman who I got a message from here is a demonstration of this irreparable harm. So I want to congratulate you, Attorney General Campbell, on getting this far and actually getting a permanent injunction.” 

The Trump Administration is blatantly violating the Constitution and federal law. 

• In response to a question by Ranking Member Raskin on how Attorneys General are defending the integrity of federal laws and programs that Congress has adopted, Attorney General Ellison explained: “We regard the laws that Congress passes as fundamentally the prerogative of the people who, populate this country and send members to Congress. And so, for an executive to usurp the role of Congress in appropriations or establishment of agencies or anything like that, we view as an outrageous overreach that simply cannot be tolerated.”
   
• Rep. Ted Lieu broke down how Trump’s immigration enforcers are operating with total disregard for the law: “They cannot arrest people without probable cause, they cannot detain people without reasonable suspicion, they cannot engage in masked raids without judicial warrants, they cannot use excessive force, and they should not act like vigilante folks wearing masks. That’s what is happening.”
   
• In response to a question from Rep. Chuy Garcia, Attorney General Raoul explained that Trump’s attack on Americans’ right to birthright citizenship clearly violates the Constitution: “The language in the Fourteenth Amendment is clear: if you’re born here, you’re a citizen here.”

Donald Trump has attempted—and failed—to silence those who have opposed his lawless agenda. 

• Rep. Garcia explained how the Trump Administration is trying to chill scrutiny of its lawlessness by preventing Members of Congress from conducting lawful oversight. Attorney General Raoul said: “It’s outrageous, it’s wrong, and we have to loudly protest it. We have to seek out all remedies available to not allow this kind of behavior to occur.”
   
• Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon said: “It’s clear that this White House desperately hopes that the accountability system of checks and balances upon power in our Constitution will not hold. […] But as millions of peaceful protesters showed last weekend and reaffirmed across the country, America has no kings. We are really grateful to the service of our Attorneys General who are working on behalf of all Americans to hold this Administration accountable and challenge its power grabs in court, because you’re winning and you’re proving every day that our country and constitution are stronger than one man’s political whims or petty vengeances.”
   
• Ranking Member Raskin said: “We will defend the rule of law. We will not be intimidated by Trump’s threats and authoritarian tactics. Those of us who aspire to and attain to public office are nothing but the servants of the people, and the people are sovereign, and we all serve in the interests of the people.”