HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — National political themes will be at the forefront of the campaign for Pennsylvania’s next attorney general. The attorney general achieved national notoriety for his important role as attorney general. fight a lawsuit It was designed to keep Donald Trump in power after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.
Candidate — Democratic Party Eugene Depasqualeformer state auditor general and twice-elected Republican. dave sundaethe twice-elected York County district attorney, will carry the message he honed in the primary into his November general election campaign.
DePasquale said his top two priorities reflect concerns he’s heard from Democratic primary voters: protecting voting and abortion rights.
DePasquale said Pennsylvanians have changed their view of the state’s highest law enforcement agency in the wake of the 2020 election and President Trump’s efforts to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court. flip over The landmark Roe v. Wade decision protecting the right to abortion.
DePasquale said the role of law enforcement remains important. “But abortion rights, democracy, and the right to vote were expressed to me over and over again by voters.”
The Sunday paper said the fentanyl crisis is “the biggest issue facing Pennsylvanians,” and said it was a national Republican talking point in an election year when President Trump has set his sights on Biden’s immigration policies. The state is a border state,” the package states.
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Sunday said his focus on fentanyl is not political, but reflects his experience both as a county prosecutor and in campaign work.
“When I started talking about what I’ve done as an elected official, in fact, how many people came up to me personally at every event and told me that there were children who died of overdoses. I was surprised that he waited to tell me about his brother who died of an overdose,” Sunday said in an interview.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General prosecutes fraudsters, drug traffickers, gun traffickers, public corruption, and environmental crimes while defending state agencies against lawsuits.
But Paul Nollet, a political science professor at Marquette University, said state attorneys general are also becoming increasingly political, reflecting the sharp polarization between the country’s two major political parties.
As part of that, they increasingly challenge federal laws and regulations in court and play a major role in shaping national policy, usually in groups of Republican-led or Democratic-led states, Nollette said. .
In interviews, both DePasquale and Sunday nod to the need for safe communities and said they will fight violent crime. They also spoke about the need to treat the root causes of crime, such as addiction and mental illness.
When it comes to the fight against fentanyl, they offer similar answers. We work with all levels of government and the therapeutic community.
Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are estimated to kill more than 150 Americans every day, and the Biden administration says it is accelerating efforts to stem its flow into the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, more than 90% of illegally imported fentanyl is seized at the Southwest border, most of it smuggled in vehicles driven by U.S. citizens.
Both men say they will defend Pennsylvania’s law that legalizes abortion up to 23 weeks into pregnancy.
But Sunday declined to address his position on abortion rights, saying, “I’m not running for Congress.”
DePasquale said he supports abortion rights and said officials in the anti-abortion state could try to prosecute or obtain medical records of women who come to Pennsylvania for abortions. I expected that the attorney general would be asked to protect against
Fifteen Democratic-controlled states have laws aimed at protecting providers and others from such prosecutions.
Another possibility is that Pennsylvania’s next attorney general, who is scheduled to take office in January, could face lawsuits over this November’s presidential election, when the state is once again expected to be a top battleground state. There is sex.
Both Mr. Sunday and Mr. DePasquale say they are preparing for that possibility.
Sunday said there was no question that Biden won the 2020 election, but he also did not deny President Trump’s claims. baseless claims that widespread fraud It changed the outcome in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Sunday said he could only speak about claims of election fraud that his office investigated in York County.
official of Trump’s own administration they said they found it no evidence of fraud.
Mr. DePasquale said there was no question about the legitimacy of the 2020 election and said acceptance of the election involved principles. Multiple court decisions He denied President Trump’s claims of election fraud.
“And if you don’t want to accept that, I doubt you even support following the rule of law in Pennsylvania,” DePasquale said.
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