Norman Helgason / norman@thereflector.com
Before becoming Washington’s attorney general, Nick Brown was perhaps best known to many as a contestant on the second season of CBS’s “Survivor: The Australian Outback.” Now, five months into his term, he’s facing what he calls a very different kind of survival challenge: helping democracy withstand President Donald Trump’s second term.
“I get asked sometimes how (Survivor) prepared me for this moment,” Brown told a crowd at the League of Women Voters’ state convention in Vancouver on Friday, June 6. “And it really did not.”
What did prepare him, Brown said, was a legal career spent defending civil rights and months of advance work anticipating the wave of executive actions coming out of the White House.
Just five months into his tenure, he has already filed 20 lawsuits against the Trump administration.
At the same point during Trump’s first term, the office had filed only two.
“We have been preparing, analyzing, researching and collaborating with our partners across the country, but it is also a reflection on the lawlessness that we are seeing from the president,” Brown said.
“(He) disregards clear Supreme Court precedent, disregards the power and the role of Congress, disregards state sovereignty.”
In an interview with The Reflector, Brown said the legal challenges impact communities across the state, including Southwest Washington. He pointed to cuts affecting higher education and health care access nationwide.
“A lot of the work we’ve done (is) to protect funding. Cuts affect institutions like Washington State University, (the) University of Washington,” Brown told The Reflector.
Brown, who started his legal career in the Army Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG), also voiced alarm about the proposed $12 billion in cuts to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“We’re talking about impacts to public health, public education,” he said. “One of the concerns I have, as a veteran, is seeing the dismantling of federal employment and the impacts it’s gonna have on veterans who have served our country. Southwest Washington has a pretty strong and vibrant veterans community. That really touches me.”
Brown also addressed La Center School District’s lawsuit to preserve a controversial policy requiring school staff to notify parents if a student uses different pronouns, regardless of the student’s consent.
Brown said his office has two primary responsibilities: defending Washington state law and advocating for the civil rights of all residents, including transgender youth and other vulnerable populations.
“Thankfully, Washington continues to have strong protections for people regardless of their background,” he said. “But when government entities disregard those laws, it’s troubling, and it’s our job to remind them of their obligations.”
Brown fielded questions from locals about habeas corpus, due process, immigration detention, AI regulation and Medicaid cuts during a moderated Q&A following his public address.
One attendee who said they had lived through a dozen presidential transitions said this was the first time he feared for the integrity of fundamental rights such as habeas corpus. They expressed fear due to the administration's approach to immigrant deportations, which bypasses usual due process regardless of visa status.
Brown emphasized that every individual, regardless of their detention status, is entitled to constitutional due process. He warned that if those rights are denied to some, it puts everyone's freedoms at risk.
“The worst offenders, the most offensive to us, deserve the same protections as everyone,” Brown said. “In this context now … it is dangerous for the rest of us.”
Another local raised concern about a provision in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” a federal budget package that passed the House and included language banning states from enacting their own AI regulations.
“What that has to do with budget reconciliation, I’m not sure,” Brown said. “Some representatives, including Republicans, said they wouldn’t have voted for it had they known what was buried in there.”
He also expressed concern about the harmful influence of algorithm-driven content on children.
“The dangers to children in particular around AI are (real),” Brown said. “I’ve got a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old. They’re on YouTube and they think what they see is real.”
On the question of Medicaid, Brown said the Trump administration's plans to cut hundreds of millions from the program could devastate state services.
“We don't have the financial wherewithal to fill that void … We certainly could not respond (and) provide the same level of care,” he said.
When asked what keeps him going, Brown pointed to the people he serves.
“What I see in my job is people who still give a damn about their country and their state, and I have more faith in them than I do in the power of one person,” he said. “It won't be easy, but we'll survive.”