Takeaways from the Oregon attorney general debate with Dan Rayfield, Will Lathrop

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – As Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum steps down, two candidates are battling to become Oregon’s top defender.

Candidates include Republican Will Lathrop, a former deputy district attorney in Yamhill County and office director for the International Justice Mission.

Democratic candidate Dan Rayfield has served in the Oregon House of Representatives since 2015 and was Speaker of the House from 2022 to March.

Below are key takeaways from the attorney general debate hosted by KOIN 6 News.

WATCH: Full Attorney General debate with Dan Rayfield, Will Lathrop

Priorities in office

Will Lathrop claimed he would bring “a wave of new leadership” to the attorney general’s office. If elected, he said he would prioritize addressing drug trafficking, combatting corruption, and protecting children from abuse and online exploitation.

“Priority number one is that the attorney general is supposed to run point on all organized crime – that’s drug trafficking, human trafficking, and organized retail theft,” Lathrop said. “My first order of business is to take on drug trafficking and the drug cartel.”

"We need to make it exceedingly difficult to bring fentanyl and meth into our state," Lathrop added.

If elected, Lathrop said he would advocate for legislation that would improve mental health treatment in the state.

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Dan Rayfield echoed calls to address drug trafficking and protecting children.

“The first priority that I have in this role is to keep our community safe. That means tackling the drug delivery issues in all four corners of our state. That also means keeping our children safe from internet crimes. It also means that we need an attorney general that is going to be the attorney general for all Oregonians and that means expanding the work that we do to protect our seniors, our consumers and our working families and that’s from things like wage theft, fly-by-night scams come in and out of our communities and many other things like predatory lending," Rayfield said.

If elected, Rayfield said he would create a Working Families Unit within the Attorney General’s office to combat issues such as wage theft and misclassification of workers.

Rayfield also wants to create a grant program, modeled after a federal program, to modernize policing practices.

Abortion

The candidates offered differing views on addressing abortion rights as attorney general.

When asked about the role of protecting abortion rights in Oregon, Lathrop emphasized that attorneys general enforce laws and do not create them.

“The law in Oregon has been well settled. The [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health] decision in 2022 didn’t affect Oregon’s law at all,” Lathrop said. “I think that what Oregonians are really concerned about is who can they trust, when they’re elected, to protect women. I think my background in prosecuting domestic violence cases, sexual assault cases here in Oregon and internationally leaves me in the best place to protect women.”

KOIN 6 News followed up asking if Lathrop would continue Attorney General Rosenblum’s work as she co-leads a multistate lawsuit to lift restrictions on abortion medication mifepristone.

Lathrop said, “There are no restrictions in the state of Oregon on abortion drugs. That’s well-settled law and I will continue that practice.”

Meanwhile, Rayfield said abortion is an issue that shows a “clear difference” between the candidates – noting he would protect Oregon women from national attacks on abortion access.

“Things are well-settled law until they’re not well-settled law,” Rayfield argued. “As attorney general, I will be there to defend Oregon women from a national abortion ban. And what that looks like is when the federal government passes a national abortion ban, that law will be in conflict with our Oregon laws, and you can count on me to protect Oregon laws and abortion.”

Gun violence

When it comes to the attorney general's role addressing gun violence, Rayfield highlighted his time in the legislature where he helped pass universal background checks and a ghost gun ban.

"Right now, what is developing is a critical role that the attorney general plays in defending those laws," Rayfield said. "Ballot Measure 114, which was a gun violence prevention measure, is challenged in our own courts right now on the constitutionality. As your next attorney general, I will defend the constitutionality of those gun violence prevention laws."

In Lathrop's view, Oregon has passed gun laws but is not enforcing them.

"We pass a lot of laws in Oregon, and we boast about the laws we pass, but we're not enforcing those laws. That's the critical issue in Oregon. We don't have a law creation problem; we have a law enforcement problem. And so, the more gun bills that we've passed over the last 10 years, and we've just seen an increase in gun violence, means it's not working," Lathrop said.

Addressing the fentanyl crisis

Rayfield pointed to his time in the state legislature passing bills to address the crisis, explaining, "As Speaker of the House, we brought together, earlier this year, Democrats, Republicans, law enforcement officers as well as district attorneys to tighten down and give law enforcement tools to combat drug delivery."

"We also added resources into the Department of Justice -- lawyers and investigators -- to go after drug delivery in that space," Rayfield added, noting the next step is for the attorney general to use those resources and coordinate with state and federal law enforcement agencies to address the crisis.

Lathrop pointed to his international law experience taking on crime syndicates, noting, "the attorney general's office needs leadership, and needs somebody who will stand up to the foreign drug cartels, that's not scared to say the word drug trafficking, that's not scared to say the word drug cartel and will push these people that are making so much money off of killing Oregonians out of our state."

To address the issue of drugs coming into the state from the southern border, Lathrop said the Attorney General's office needs to do a better job partnering with the DEA, FBI, and INTERPOL to hold people running drug organizations accountable.

In his response, Rayfield said he would work with the organized crime section of the Attorney General's office and make tackling drug delivery a priority. He also pledged to go to the legislature to add a criminal justice attorney to the executive office in the Department of Justice to lead the effort statewide.