PORT TOWNSEND — State Attorney General Bob Ferguson spoke about his office’s success against the Trump administration and the fight against the opioid crisis during a 45-minute address Tuesday.
In a wide-ranging discussion that included questions from the audience, Ferguson spoke to about 100 people, including three combined Rotary clubs of Jefferson County and elected officials, in a Northwest Maritime Center conference room.
Ferguson touched on immigration and President Donald Trump’s first Muslim travel ban. He also talked about American values and enforced his role to protect state laws, even if he doesn’t personally agree with them.
The biggest crowd response came during opening remarks when Ferguson discussed his multiple challenges of the Trump administration and many of the executive orders the president has issued since he took office in January 2017.
“My office has filed 35 lawsuits against the Trump administration. That’s a lot of litigation,” Ferguson said to a round of applause.
Ferguson, in his second four-year term as attorney general and a possible Democratic candidate for governor in 2020, said his office has been successful at the federal level in every case against Trump that has been resolved.
“We are literally 22-0 in our cases against the administration,” he said.
About half of those cases have involved the environment, Ferguson said.
He referred to coal leasing on federal lands and the Obama administration’s effort to enforce regulations that require mitigation efforts before coal leasing could take place.
“The president rolled all that back,” Ferguson said.
He also referred to the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and said that, while presidents have a lot of power, they still have to follow policies before they use executive orders.
“Part of it is the administration is sloppy,” Ferguson said.
“The APA requires the administration to show their work on how they arrived at a conclusion,” he added. “They lose over and over because they just refuse to do that.”
Ferguson’s office was the first in the nation to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration on the first Muslim travel ban. He said the Department of Justice’s argument wasn’t based on whether it was right or wrong but because the president’s decision was “unreviewable by the courts.”
“That did not go over well with the federal judges,” Ferguson said. “There are times in our country when we have reviewed the president’s powers. Even in times of war, federal courts have reviewed presidents’ decisions.”
On opioids, Ferguson said the problem stems from the sheer number of pills handed out in communities. He used examples of a person having surgery to remove wisdom teeth or hurting a knee while skiing.
“There are enough pills for every man, woman and child in Washington state to have a 27-day supply,” he said.
“Those states that have put in pill limits have seen a decrease in opioids,” he added.
In many cases, there are more prescriptions than people in a given county, and that’s not unique to Washington, he said.
“The harm that has been done is profound,” Ferguson said. “I’ve met many parents who have lost their children to addiction. We can’t undo the damage that’s done.”
He also touched on the DREAM Act, which established legislation to protect from children from being deported if they arrived in the United States before they turned 18.
In order to be eligible, they must fill out paperwork. The Trump administration removed from a website the protection that guaranteed they would not be deported, Ferguson said.
“A deal is a deal in our country,” he said. “Our country made a promise not to use that information against them, and now we’re going to take that back?
“These are wholly American values. I think that’s part of the reason we win these cases over and over and over.”
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Jefferson County Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 6, or at bmclean@peninsuladailynews.com.
