Oregon attorney general race offers Republicans best chance in decades at statewide victory

Editor’s note: Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Stay informed with OPB on the presidential race, key congressional battles and other local contests and ballot measures in Oregon and Southwest Washington at opb.org/elections.

Oregon’s race for attorney general is arguably Republicans’ best shot at winning statewide office in decades.

The race pits Republican Will Lathrop, an experienced prosecutor pushing a public safety message, against former Speaker of the House Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, who represents the political establishment that, for years, has been responsible for shaping policies and laws.

Despite that, both candidates have a lot in common. Both are white men in their mid-40s, and both attended law school at Willamette University around the same time.

Of course, there are differences too.

What you need to know about voting in Oregon and Southwest Washington

Lathrop, a former prosecutor in Marion and Yamhill counties, recently returned to the United States after working for a Christian human rights nonprofit in Uganda and Ghana. He’s running on his experience in law enforcement prosecuting crimes, such as homicides and human trafficking, and has stressed he’s not a politician.

“If you don’t actually have a law enforcement background, or that buy-in or credibility with the law enforcement community, you can’t actually get the laws executed,” Lathrop said in an interview with OPB. “That’s where we’ve really struggled in Oregon.”

Rayfield, a personal injury lawyer, spent nearly a decade representing the Corvallis area in the Oregon Legislature, ascending to Speaker of the House in 2022, until stepping down this year to run for attorney general. He says if elected he’d build on his work in politics and law to defend the state’s abortion laws, protect the environment and go after scams.

“Whether it’s housing and homelessness or it’s a substance abuse crisis, or you see seniors and consumers that are being taken advantage of in their community, the attorney general’s office in Oregon — with the right leadership — can have an important impact on those issues,” Rayfield told OPB in an interview. “That’s why I wanted to run for this position.”

Regardless of who Oregonians elect as the state’s next top law enforcement official in November, it’ll be a significant change. Since 2012, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, a Democrat, has won the statewide race three times, but isn’t seeking reelection this year.

Issues important to Oregon voters

The attorney general essentially runs Oregon’s largest law firm, the Oregon Department of Justice. The agency boasts a nearly $900 million biannual budget and nearly 1,500 employees.

The department defends state laws and agencies in court. The attorney general is also responsible for protecting residents through lawsuits against the federal government and companies that cheat, lie or harm Oregonians.

Under Rosenblum’s tenure, Oregon’s Department of Justice has fiercely defended the state, whether it’s the troubled child welfare system, how the state dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic in its prisons or its efforts to implement a voter-approved measure regulating firearms.

Ballot Measure 114 bans the manufacture and sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and requires anyone who wishes to obtain a firearm to get a permit first. Permits will require taking a safety course and completing a federal background check.

OPB interviewed both candidates and asked them to complete a series of written questions. In them, both Lathrop and Rayfield agreed they would continue the agency’s vigorous push to implement the law, which has been blocked in the courts after it narrowly passed in November 2022.

“It is the role of the Attorney General to uphold the law,” Lathrop wrote. “Ballot Measure 114 was passed into law in 2022, and will remain the law pending the ruling of the higher court.”

“I would continue to move the process forward,” Rayfield responded. “Oregon voters passed Measure 114 to protect our communities and kids from acts of gun violence that are all too common in this country, while respecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Both Rayfield and Lathrop indicated they’re familiar with the DOJ’s reputation for aggressively defending state laws, and both signaled they might take a more moderate approach, especially in instances where state employees, agencies or laws have caused harm.

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Lathrop, who grew up on a cattle ranch in Wallowa County, spent time prosecuting sex abuse cases before joining International Justice Mission. The Christian-backed human rights organization said it works to protect people living in poverty from human trafficking and violence.

“I’ve got statewide, national and international law enforcement experience,” Lathrop said. “Each year I would come back to Oregon when I was living overseas and just watching the decay of law and order and particularly victim protection.”

During the pandemic, violent crime increased in Oregon and across the country, but has dropped sharply since.

While Lathrop boasts his leadership at International Justice Mission as an asset, a 2023 BBC documentary raised concerns about its work in Ghana when Lathrop served as country director for the nonprofit. According to the BBC’s reporting:

“IJM has removed some children from their families in cases where there was scarce-to-no evidence of trafficking and this aggressive approach may have been fuelled by a target-driven culture inside IJM. We found two documented cases of rescue operations in which children were forcibly, traumatically and unjustly removed and the children’s relatives prosecuted as child traffickers.”

In an interview with OPB, Lathrop dismissed the BBC’s findings. He said IJC worked behind the scenes and said it was Ghanaian social workers and police who took children to court where judges made determinations about removing children from their homes.

“They accused IJM of kidnapping,” Lathrop told OPB. “IJM doesn’t have the power and never has taken a kid and never has removed a child from home. It’s always the police or social workers, and it’s all documented.”

He said to call any of that kidnapping, as the documentary suggests, is “outlandish and not supported by any of the court documentation.”

The film concludes noting that Lathrop left the Christian nonprofit and mentions his campaign for Oregon attorney general.

Lathrop has raised just over $1 million in campaign contributions and has more than $530,000 cash on hand, according to campaign finance disclosures filed with the state.

Rayfield has brought in $1.2 million in campaign contributions and has more than $940,000 cash on hand, according to the state campaign finance disclosures. A sizable chunk comes from out-of-state law firms who could get contracts from the state in future litigation. Some states call these campaign contributions “pay-to-play” and prohibit them, but not Oregon.

Rayfield is running on his experience in public office and politics. When he first ran for the Legislature in 2014, Rayfield addressed run-ins with the law he had while as a young adult, including a DUII he got when he was 18 years old that was later dismissed.

In a campaign ad for attorney general, Rayfield acknowledged he “even ended up on the wrong side of the law a few times” and had a challenging childhood and “saw up close how physical abuse and addiction impact families.” In an interview with OPB, he recalled attending recovery meetings as a kid with his mom.

Rayfield embodies many of the things that Lathrop argues he’s running against. But that political experience also allows Rayfield to point to what he said are bipartisan policy victories he helped craft, such as the legislation that rolled back Oregon’s drug decriminalization law and made possession a crime once more.

“Everybody wanted to solve the root cause of what we were seeing, which was a substance abuse crisis,” he said.

Take a deeper look at Oregon’s efforts to address addiction

OPB asked both candidates whether they support their party’s presidential candidates.

Rayfield wrote that he “enthusiastically supports Kamala Harris for President.”

Lathrop wouldn’t say where he comes down on former President Donald Trump and pivoted to critique Oregon’s political establishment that’s been dominated for decades by Democrats.

“So you have to admit if you’re a Democrat, you cannot keep electing the exact same people in different seats and expect that the results are going to be any different,” Lathrop said. “It’s just like this musical chairs of the same people who voted for, and did all of the things you’re frustrated by.”

His goal is to “redefine what an Oregon Republican really is” and rejects “any kind of radical politics from the right or left.”

“Oregon needs that,” Lathrop said. “Oregon is hungry for that.”