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Attorney general candidates tout their experience and qualifications
Opioid crisis is a top priority for both candidates
YOUNGSTOWN
The two candidates running for attorney general – Republican Dave Yost and Democrat Steve Dettelbach – say their experience and qualifications make them the best person for the job.
Yost, 61, of Columbus, has spent the past eight years as the state’s auditor. Before that, he was Delaware County prosecutor and auditor.
Dettelbach, 52, of Solon, is an attorney who has more than two decades of experience as a federal prosecutor, including seven years as the U.S. attorney of the Northern District of Ohio.
“There should be one set of rules that apply to everybody,” Dettelbach said. “That set of rules needs to be enforced in such a way that holds everyone accountable, no matter how powerful, and protects everyone, no matter how vulnerable.”
Dettelbach said he’s heard from many people that “politicians have rigged the system to benefit themselves and powerful special interests while real problems facing Ohioans have gone largely unaddressed and hardworking people have struggled to get ahead.”
Yost said his record shows that “I don’t pull punches. I don’t play sides. I don’t play politics.”
He added that the attorney general must protect the rule of law.
“We cannot have an attorney general who will use the courts for political gain or pursue partisan causes at the peoples’ expense,” Yost said. “We need someone who will call balls and strikes. That is how I have spent my entire career, and that is what I will do as attorney general.”
Dettelbach, who’s running for elected office for the first time, said, unlike his opponent, “I am not a career politician.”
He said as a prosecutor, he’s won major convictions in cases involving terrorism, public corruption, fraud, gun violence, heroin trafficking, financial fraud and hate crimes.
Yost said Dettelbach’s “lack of state office [experience] is a hindrance because the state is not the federal government. It has a different way of doing things.”
Yost said as state auditor he has worked to bring increased transparency and accountability to state and local governments.
He points to his Public Integrity Unit’s investigations into former Niles Mayor Ralph Infante that resulted in 22 convictions against him and the 101-count indictment against former Youngstown Mayor Charles Sammarone, ex-city Finance Director David Bozanich and downtown developer Dominic Marchionda.
Both said among their top priorities is fighting the opioid crisis.
“Opioids are destroying Ohio, and the plans to stop their spread simply have not worked,” Yost said. “We need to get tougher on how we stop the drugs coming into our state. We need to get drug dealers off the street and into prison. We need [to] get those battling addiction into treatment so they can get their lives back on track.”
Dettelbach said: “I will tackle the opioid crisis head-on by going after pharmaceutical companies who flooded our communities with addictive pills and will make them pay for treatment. I’ll also work to improve enforcement, prevention and treatment by implementing a multifaceted approach.”