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Oregon AG announces Economic Justice Section and Working Families Unit to expand consumer protection
Summary
Attorney General Dan Rayfield said his office is creating an Economic Justice Section with a Working Families Unit to double consumer-protection capacity and pursue a broader range of worker and consumer claims; federal retreat by agencies like the CFPB and FTC, Sam Levine warned, increases the state's enforcement role.
Attorney General Dan Rayfield told the Senate Interim Committee on Labor and Business on Sept. 30 that the Oregon Department of Justice is creating an Economic Justice Section that will include a Working Families Unit to expand consumer and worker protection.
"We are moving portions of our unit together to form the economic justice section, which will house within it a working families unit," Rayfield said, explaining the reorganization will allow the office to pursue more day‑to‑day, high‑impact cases that previously lacked capacity.
Rayfield said the change doubles the department’s consumer-protection attorney capacity after the 2025 legislative session increased funding. He described the unit's scope as broad, encompassing claims from child‑labor violations to antitrust and intentional misclassification of workers.
Sam Levine, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice and former head of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, told the committee that federal consumer watchdogs are weakening and urged stronger state protections. "The CFPB is being gutting the agency, vowing to cut 90% of CFPB staff and nearly 50% of its budget," Levine said, and he cited recent federal actions that have undone enforcement settlements and clawed back consumer compensation.
Levine recommended the legislature consider tightening Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act, which he said currently exempts some industries and lacks heightened penalties for harms to seniors and service members. "As the legislature considers ways to shield Oregon consumers from financial exploitation, I would respectfully urge you to strengthen your consumer protection laws," he told lawmakers.
Leslie Wu, policy adviser to the attorney general, described the office’s consumer‑complaints hotline and a recently completed attorney‑general survey that reached more than 350 Oregonians in 25 counties. Wu said the hotline averages about 200 calls per week and that the top complaint categories for 2024 included telecommunications, imposter scams and auto sales and repair.
Committee members pressed DOJ staff on how the office distinguishes individual complaints from systemic fraud, how it coordinates with other state agencies, and how the new section will translate hotline data into investigations and prevention. Rayfield said the restructure will enable better cross‑agency data use and stronger preventive work alongside enforcement.
The committee received the presentation as informational; no formal action was taken on the proposal itself. The DOJ panel closed after members asked follow‑up questions about case triage and data sharing.
