Oregon voters will get to elect a new state attorney general after Ellen Rosenblum announced her decision last year not to seek reelection. The open race features Republican Will Lathrop and Democrat Dan Rayfield. Lathrop is a former prosecutor in Marion and Yamhill counties. Rayfield is a state Representative from Corvallis, a former Speaker of the Oregon House and a trial attorney. The candidates join us for a debate and to share their priorities for the job.
Candidates for Oregon Attorney General in 2024: left, Democratic nominee Dan Rayfield, and right, Republican nominee Will Lathrop.
Courtesy of the campaigns
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Oregon will soon have a new attorney general for the first time in 12 years. Ellen Rosenblum announced her decision last year to not seek reelection, leaving an open race for the state’s top law enforcement official. I’m joined today by two candidates who would like to fill that seat. Republican Will Lathrop from Newberg was a prosecutor in Marion and Yamhill counties for nine years. More recently, he worked in Ghana and Uganda on criminal justice and anti-human trafficking issues.
Democrat Dan Rayfield from Corvallis has practiced law since 2006. He was first elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 2014, and in 2022 he became the Speaker of the House. Will Lathrop and Dan Rayfield, welcome to Think Out Loud.
Dan Rayfield: Thank you for inviting us.
Will Lathrop: Thanks for having us.
Miller: We randomly selected one of you to go first – meaning, I wrote your names on crumpled up pieces of paper and shook it up in my hand. Will, you’re gonna get first crack at this first question. You both talked about responding to the fentanyl crisis as the attorney general. What would you do that’s different from your opponent?
Lathrop: So the fentanyl crisis can be divided into two halves. There’s people that are possessing and using fentanyl, and overdosing and dying. And most of the usury level enforcement and intervention happens at the grassroots level. It happens at the county and the city level. But the industry, the people that are making millions of dollars off of exploiting addiction and crushing these families and communities through fentanyl is what is really organized crime. It’s a foreign drug cartel and it’s a cartel that’s making millions of dollars off of,
essentially an industry of death.
So my background is taking on organized crime internationally. This is an international crime and I can lead that effort well. I’m probably one of the only people in the state that has the sort of level of local experience as being a prosecutor here in Oregon, the national experience working in Washington DC, and then the international experience in taking on organized crime.
Miller: So you’re saying it’s your experience which distinguishes you, if I understand correctly, from Dan Rayfield … and Dan, I’ll give you a chance to respond in a second. But what specifically would you do that you’re saying is different, separate from the fact that you’re saying you have experience?
Lathrop: Right now the current administration has not done a very good job of connecting police and prosecutors across the state. Sheriffs, chiefs of police and district attorneys building a collective strategy, sharing information and pushing resources to the ground. We need to become as organized as the organized crime is around us. And so we’ve also not been well connected to the federal government, to HIDTA, to FBI, to DEA, to INTERPOL so that we can start driving these cases out of the state of Oregon and making arrests in places where it actually hurts the cartel.
Most of the industry that works within Oregon, most of the drug trafficking that happens in Oregon, are people that, to the organized crime, the cartel, are more or less expendable. So I’m going to be working collaboratively through multiple agencies, which I’ve done in the past, to drive these cases out of the state.
Miller: Dan Rayfield, what do you say you would do that’s different from what Will Lathrop would do?
Rayfield: I would take a step back, and this is where people are thinking about this race and the different roles of law enforcement in our communities. The first thing to remember is your first point of contact is your law enforcement officers on the ground. Then you have your district attorneys, and then you move into your state level at the Attorney General’s office. Then you have these partnerships at the federal levels. Part of the responsibility of the attorney general is to convene and work together with all of these different branches of law enforcement to then effectuate change in the community – in this case drug cartels, drug delivery.
In the legislature, one of the things that we did was we strengthened the tools [that] brought Democrats and Republicans together to actually create better laws to curb drug delivery. And most importantly, we added additional lawyers and investigators into the Department of Justice. So when I come into this role, one of the things that I want to do is utilize those positions to then be able to partner with local law enforcement to curb the drug delivery in the cartels.
More importantly, I would like to take … and this is a little bit different than the current administration because the lay of the land in our state in our nation with respect to drug delivery has changed. What I want to do is put a broader emphasis within the Department of Justice’s executive office by bringing a lawyer specifically into the executive office of the Attorney General’s office to focus on drug delivery and actually getting meaningful results in that space.
Miller: I have to say that I don’t hear big policy differences in those two answers. You both talked about what are the established roles for the Oregon DOJ, compared to local law enforcement. You’ve also both talked about emphasizing partnerships, from the feds down to the local level, to deal with a very multifaceted problem.
Dan, let me give you a chance briefly to try to articulate what you see as the differences between your two approaches – 30 seconds for that.
Rayfield: I think as politicians, especially when you’re running a campaign, you want to make distinguishing differences in some of these areas. This is an area where I think that there is going to be a lot of commonality. Of course, in the campaign and politics, both of us are gonna try and pretend that there’s differences there that may necessarily not be there. I think what you’re hearing the difference in what I’m talking about is creating a point person within the executive office to help lead that where there’s more direct accountability in the partnerships in that space.
I think one of the other things that I have that’s incredibly unique is a set of experiences of bringing people together – law enforcement, district attorneys, Republicans and Democrats – that actually effectuate change in ways that a lot of people think wasn’t possible.
Miller: Will Lathrop, what do you see briefly as an actual difference?
Lathrop: One of the reasons our platforms are sounding similar is because Dan’s has migrated his platform over time after listening to me speak to be more like mine. That’s a compliment because he’s realizing that this is an important issue and it needs to be dealt with.
But the real difference is, it doesn’t take a lot of expertise to vote on a bill that deals with heart health, but heart surgery or a heart surgeon is a specialized position. And so if you’re going to take on organized crime, you want somebody that has experience doing that, not just experience doing that, but it’s been very successful. And I was very successful in West Africa at taking on human trafficking crime. And that’s why law enforcement, the sheriffs across the state, most of the law enforcement leaders across the state are endorsing my campaign because it’s street cred. They want not just somebody who can say a political line, or can pick up the right words or the right polling data, but somebody that actually has experience in doing that thing. That’s the separation.
Rayfield: And Dave, this is incredibly important because my opponent has just said some things that he factually knows are incorrect. And Mr. Lathrop, you’ve been through numerous conversations. You’ve been listening to me for more than a year. You know, you’re wrong. These aren’t things that are adaptive from you. And also you’re wrong in the fact that there are front line law enforcement officers that are endorsing this campaign that you actively tried to seek. Just like the Republicans. [Lathrop interrupts] Just like you’re interrupting, Mr Lathrop. You’re unprofessional. You’re interrupting. There are other entities that you tried to seek that have endorsed Republicans and you are unable to get the lead district attorneys in the largest county in the state are endorsing this campaign. You do not have those endorsements.
Miller: Will, let me give you 10 seconds to respond to my next question after that.
Lathrop: About 22 district attorneys across the state have endorsed my campaign. This is a statewide position, not a Portland position. The sheriffs [and] all the leadership of law enforcement have endorsed my campaign. Dan has picked off a couple of smaller, lower level things, but the point remains the same. Dan has zero experience doing this. He can talk about it. He’s never done it.
Miller: I want to move on to another big issue that the attorney general’s office at Oregon Department of Justice is in charge of, which is defending the state, representing the state.
In a hearing about long-term care issues, State Senator Sara Gelser Blouin described how the DOJ can be problematic. She said that the way our state is structured, the Department of Justice is essentially serving as a quote “liability protection firm for state agencies rather than advocating for the people of Oregon.”
Briefly, Dan Rayfield. Do you agree?
Rayfield: It’s much more complicated than that. You have a multi-tiered role as the attorney general. So for folks that are listening, who probably don’t think about this – the Department of Justice, whenever there is a claim against a state agency, you are the attorney for that state agency and there is a balance between holding agencies accountable, making sure that they’re following the law in that space. There’s a balance between actually being a legal advocate for the state so we’re not wasting taxpayer dollars. And then there is a balance on what I would say is, when you’re in a lawsuit against the state, how do you respect the parties involved and actually resolve cases in a way that is respectful for all folks. And so I think it is a little bit of a balance.
Miller: Let me put it this way because it’s not the job of the attorney general to set the policy of other agencies. You can give them legal counsel and then you can represent them if you need to.
How would you approach defending policies that are lawful, but that in your opinion, are misguided?
Rayfield: Well, that is just a part of the role and responsibility of the attorney general’s office. You are not in a position where you are setting policy. If an agency is choosing not to follow, say, their administrative rules or they’re operating outside the statutory scope for creating an administrative rule, it is your responsibility to make sure that that agency understands that it’s operating outside the scope. And then keep the pressure on so that they curb the way that they’re dealing under those circumstances.
Miller: Will, how would you approach this issue of defending the state agencies in cases where you actually think that the policy that you are required to defend is misguided?
Lathrop: That’s the duty. This is a law enforcement position, it’s not a law creation position. And so the role of the attorney general is to enforce and uphold the law. So your opinion or the policies, whether you support them or don’t support them in a democracy, the people choose those, and the attorney general enforces and executes those. And that’s what I’ll do as an attorney general, I will dutifully follow the law.
But what I won’t do is I won’t defend illegal state action or illegal agency action, which happens in Oregon. When the state agencies go beyond their legislative authority, when they go beyond their legal authority and they break the law, it’s the role of the attorney general to hold them accountable, and I’ll do that.
Miller: What’s an example in recent years where you’re saying the state DOJ defended illegal actions?
Lathrop: DHS has been repeatedly told by the court system that they’re not allowed to house foster children in hotel rooms because hotel rooms have heat, they have power, food and shelter, but they don’t have what the kids need most, which is affection and love. And it’s caused several … I think it’s up to 14 children who have died in DHS care in the last year. The courts have repeatedly said they can’t do that and DHS has repeatedly done that. And the Department of Justice has spent millions of dollars defending DHS in court, only to lose another $18 million recently in court. So I would not defend illegal state action and I would hold DHS accountable. Absolutely.
Miller: Dan Rayfield, would you have addressed the DHS cases over the last couple of years differently?
Rayfield: Yes, absolutely. And I think the thing that I’m concerned with is how long these cases took to resolve. I’m very concerned about the amount of third party attorney fees that were paid in these cases. I think that this could have been an easy process where we could have looked at dispute resolution or other to intervene a little bit earlier. Because when you do it sooner, you’re getting better outcomes for the kids involved. You’re creating better policy moving forward so these things don’t happen again and you’re saving money.
Now, here’s an interesting thing that I’ve always wanted to ask you, Mr Lathrop, when you say you will not defend a state agency. When a state agency and it is your role and responsibility, the legal officer for the state, what does that mean? Does that mean you are forcing the agency to hire an outside law, like an attorney? Because I’ve never truly understood that.
Lathrop: I have listened to you speak in Eugene, Dan, when you said that you would settle these cases with DHS quicker. That was the antidote, settling the cases quicker. These are real human lives. These are children that are in the foster care system that are completely dependent on the state for their care, and treating them as a risk mitigation to quickly settle and get out of the public eye, I find it an offensive way to deal with the problem. I’ve said, and I’ll continue to say I will not defend illegal state action. I’ll do my job dutifully, I will defend the state agencies, but I will not go to court and defend illegal state action. I think that’s a bar violation and I think it’s unethical. If you will, I won’t.
Rayfield: So now the question that I have for you, Will, is who is going to be those agencies’ attorneys if you turn them down?
Lathrop: I will not defend illegal state action.
Rayfield: You won’t answer the question.
Lathrop: If you are saying that if the state agencies, when your attorney general does something legal, you’re going to defend them anyways, you can do that all you want. I will not defend illegal state action.
Rayfield: As a public defender, if I said I wouldn’t defend my client …
Miller: Let me ask both of you some questions. How will you decide then what is legal and what is not? Because often these are grayish areas, where it’s my understanding it is the job of a court to decide.
So Will, first – how, how will you make your decisions about whether or not to defend a state agency? Let’s set it aside from the DHS case.
Lathrop: Absolutely. There’s times where state agencies absolutely are working within the purview of the law and the attorney general should defend them. There’s many more times where it’s a gray area where you don’t really know and that’s what courts are for. You take one side, somebody else takes another side. You go to the court and the court determines that gray area, makes it black or white. But there are also times where the court has spoken, the law is clear, and the state agencies … or whether it be a prison system [like] the Oregon State prison that’s violating human rights or civil rights, or it’s the DHS violating children’s basic human rights, those are the times I say – they’re rare – I will not defend illegal, or unethical, or unconstitutional behavior.
Miller: Dan Rayfield.
Rayfield: This is the brilliant part about Mr. Lathrop. I think he fundamentally doesn’t understand the role and responsibilities of the attorney general under the circumstances.
Lathrop: Why don’t you answer the question and don’t tell me what I understand. You’re bluffing, you’re bluffing cause you don’t have an answer …
Rayfield: You’re interrupting, interrupting again. Let me think.
Miller: I do want to hear your answer.
Rayfield: No, I’d like to hear my answer too if I wasn’t being interrupted.
So here’s the beautiful part about what happened is [that] if you just are not going to represent somebody, then you are settling, effectively settling a case. The way that you go in the role and responsibility of the attorney general is to be the legal officer for the entire state. You have an obligation to represent state agencies when cases are brought against those state agencies. Now…
Miller: But isn’t there a way where you can effectively plead guilty? You’re still representing your client, in this case, the state agency. But you can say yes, we agree with the plaintiffs that we went against state law.
Rayfield: And this is where Mr. Lathrop gets confused. And when you do that, when you walk into what we would call dispute resolution … we do this in the private side of the world all the time. I’ve been doing it for 18 years. When you admit liability, is what we would call it, you would sit there and say we screwed up, which is what you should do. That is dispute resolution. That’s moving towards resolution, that helps families and children get to a resolution faster. When you do that, you are still representing that agency, you are still representing that state and then you’re trying to find the appropriate outcome for the future so more people can be taken care of but also in the moment.
Miller: I want to move forward because there are a lot of other issues and we have actually not much time right now. One of the roles of the Department of Justice is to partner with law enforcement entities at the lower levels and at higher levels, including the U.S. Department of Justice.
Dan Rayfield, sticking with you first. Who do you trust more to select a United States Attorney General: Kamala Harris or Donald Trump?
Rayfield: Kamala Harris
Miller: Will Lathrop?
Lathrop: Hmmm. I don’t know that I trust either one of them to select the next attorney general. I’ll be laser focused on doing my job in Oregon.
Miller: Let’s assume that one of those two people is going to be the next president of the U.S. Who would you rather select the next attorney general? U.S. Attorney General?
Lathrop: I don’t have an opinion. I’m laser focused on doing … Oregon has a lot of burning fires and they’re all self-inflicted wounds.
Miller: Let me make sure I understand. You don’t think that there would be a difference or you don’t have an opinion on who either of their choices would be?
Lathrop: It’s a hypothetical on a hypothetical. If something …
Miller: I mean, this is not an outdoor hypothetical. One of them is going to be the next president and one of them will select an attorney general, and I’m wondering who you’d rather partner with because you already did talk about partnering with U.S. law enforcement.
Lathrop: I will partner with whoever is elected to that position because that’s the role of the attorney general. And I, without knowing who is elected, and furthermore, who they would appoint as their attorney general, it’s a hypothetical upon a hypothetical. I’m laser focused on dealing with Oregon’s issues because they’re all self-inflicted wounds.
Miller: Dan Rayfield, why did you say Kamala Harris in terms of who you’d rather select for an AG?
Rayfield: When I look at the values that she represents, she more closely affiliates my values in this space.
Miller: Briefly – and Will, you can get this first – what issue do you think is not getting enough coverage in this race, an issue that has a direct bearing on the work you would do as attorney general?
Lathrop: Probably child protection. Attorney general is over the child protection division of the Department of Justice. My background is 20 years in protecting children from exploitation and abuse in Oregon, nationally and internationally. And right now, Oregon is a very unhealthy place to raise children. When you look at our online sexual exploitation of children, we are one of the worst in the country at dealing with that. We’ve seen a 530% increase in tips in the last seven years and we’re only getting to about 10% of those tips. That’s children that are being exploited online. DHS and our foster care system is a total mess.
Abuse is going up because there’s a symbiotic relationship between addiction and abuse. It’s been one of the most addicted states in America and having one of the highest rates of overdose deaths in fentanyl, the highest rate of per capita overdose deaths in the United States. And Oregon, we’re not protecting our children, and we’re not protecting the children that live on the margins in distressed neighborhoods and BIPOC neighborhoods. Oregon is really failing children right now. It’s my background. It’s my passion. It’s why I’m running.
Miller: Dan Rayfield, what about you? An issue that you think is not getting enough attention that it has a direct bearing on the work you would do as attorney general.
Rayfield: This is expanding the work and this is in the civil enforcement division, and it’s really doing more to protect seniors, doing more to protect children, doing more to protect working families. And that’s a gamut of issues that I would like to expand in the attorney general’s office. It’s the same work I’ve been doing for 18 years in private practice, where we’re looking at consumer protection issues, we’re looking at fly by night scams that are committed out of communities. We’re looking at predatory lending. There are child labor violations going on in Oregon right now. Wage theft issues. I want to be an attorney general that represents all Oregonians in this space. And I really believe it’s expanding this work on behalf of those folks that will be incredibly important.
Miller: Dan Rayfield and Will Lathrop, thanks very much.
Lathrop: Thanks for having us.
Rayfield: Thank you.
Miller: Dan Rayfield and Will Lathrop are the Democrat and the Republican running to be the next Oregon Attorney General.
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