As Trump prepares for a new term in office, 23 Democratic attorneys general will be a watchdog against any Trump-led initiatives that they believe are unconstitutional, illegal or both. The landscape has changed: Rosenblum is retiring from the role and former Oregon House Speaker Dan Rayfield will become the next attorney general. Ferguson was elected governor of Washington. The two are the last Democratic attorneys general who were in office when Trump started his first term.

In the second Trump term, attorneys general now have a four-year history of court actions that their predecessors took on wide-ranging issues like immigration, health care and the environment. And they often prevailed in court, an outcome that highlights the remarkable power that attorneys general have, through the court system, to unravel executive orders and directives from the most powerful elected leader in the world.

“We kind of have a track record and a set of expectations of how he has operated in the past,” Rayfield said in an interview with the Capital Chronicle. “The attorneys general are just a check and balance on that power. When he oversteps and pursues, whether it’s discriminatory or unlawful policies, you are that backstop for that.”

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