Attorney General Dan Rayfield today joined 19 other attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and other Trump administration officials to stop the dismantling of HHS. Since taking office, Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration have fired thousands of federal health workers, shuttered vital programs, and abandoned states to face mounting health crises without federal support. The attorneys general are asking the court to halt further dismantling and restore key program operations.
“You can’t just shut down public health programs and fire the experts who run them without consequences,” Rayfield said. “That kind of chaos puts Oregonians at risk – whether it’s tracking disease outbreaks or making sure our communities have clean water. It crosses both legal lines and basic standards of decency.”
On March 27, Secretary Kennedy revealed a dramatic restructuring of HHS as part of the president’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) initiative. The secretary announced that the department’s 28 agencies would be collapsed into 15, with many surviving offices shuffled or split apart. He also announced mass firings, slashing the department’s headcount from 85,000 to 65,000.
In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argue that these changes have wreaked havoc across the entire health system. For example, key Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) infectious disease laboratories have also been shuttered, including those responsible for testing and tracking measles, effectively halting the federal government’s ability to monitor the disease nationwide.
Attorney General Rayfield and the coalition argue that these sweeping actions are in clear violation of hundreds of federal statutes and regulations, and that the Trump administration does not have the authority to make these reckless changes. The attorneys general allege that by taking these actions without congressional approval, the administration is disregarding the constitutional separation of powers and undermining the laws and budgets enacted by Congress to protect public health.
The coalition is urging the court to halt the mass firings, reverse the illegal reorganization, and restore the critical health services that millions of Americans depend on.
On April 1, Attorney General Rayfield joined a coalition of 23 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration for abruptly and unlawfully slashing billions of dollars in vital state health funding. On April 4, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Administration, temporarily reinstating the funding.
Joining Attorney General Rayfield in this lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, New York, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
