BY Courtney DuChene
Oct. 02, 2024
Though the attorney general’s race doesn’t get the same amount of attention as, say, the presidential election, it could be almost as important. Here’s why: Our next attorney general (AG) will very likely have to defend the results of the 2024 election in what pundits are calling the most important swing state in the nation: Pennsylvania.
Oft-referred to as “the people’s lawyer,” our AG defends Pennsylvania’s laws by representing the Commonwealth in legal challenges, prosecuting organized crime and public corruption, administering consumer protection laws and conducting multi-county investigating grand juries. The $144 million office has tackled the opioid epidemic, election challenges and defended birth control access in the state. Plus, attorneys general tend to ascend to higher offices. (Governor Josh Shapiro, was until last year, PA’s AG.)
Like the Citizen’s other Ultimate Job Interview events, the AG edition will focus less on the policy questions candidates are asked ad nauseam and more on the hard and soft skills that execs and HR professionals seek in job applicants. What is their leadership style? What’s their leadership experience? What defines their character? Sure, we’ll ask about their priorities for the job — but we’ll also drill down on their plan to execute that vision.
“We ask candidates for public office about their stand on issues, but rarely ask them to demonstrate how they can get things done,” Citizen Co-founder Larry Platt said during the 2023 Democratic mayoral primary, when we first launched the Ultimate Job Interview. “It’s time to move beyond the talking points, and get real.”
Democrat Eugene DeDePasquale, Republican Dave Sunday and Forward Party candidate Eric Settle have all agreed to take part in the forum, which we’re hosting at Point Park University in downtown Pittsburgh, in partnership with Spotlight PA.
The free event will take place on October 23 — just weeks before the election — from 6:30 to 8pm. A panel with backgrounds in journalism, business and human resources will interview each candidate for 30 minutes each.
Here, a look at the candidates:
Bryn Mawr resident Settle was a lifelong Republican before he split with his party over concerns about Donald Trump. In 2022, he campaigned as a Republican for Shapiro. A self-proclaimed centrist, he joined the attorney general’s race as a candidate for Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman’s burgeoning Forward Party.
Figure: Eric Settle, Forward Party candidate.
Settle makes the case that his candidacy offers Pennsylvanians a nonpartisan, “neutral umpire” option. And he brings a wealth of Harrisburg experience to the position, to boot: serving as deputy general counsel for Governor Tom Ridge, and as a member of Shapiro’s healthcare transition team. His most recent position was as senior counsel for the healthcare company AmeriHealth Caritas.
“Why should AGs be partisan? They’re not intended to be policymakers. They’re intended to be law enforcement,” he told City and State Pennsylvania. We need an independent AG, he says, to defend the outcome of what is likely to be a contentious 2024 presidential election.
As AG, he says he’ll go after financial schemes that target seniors and defend the environment while balancing business interests.
In March, when we held a Democratic primary version of the AG Ultimate Job Interview, DePasquale made the stakes of the race clear: “This office, at this time, job number one is protecting our democracy. If we don’t do that, it’s game-set-match on everything else.”
Figure: Eugene DePasquale, Democratic candidate.
DePasquale is, of course, referring to the role Pennsylvania’s AG could play in a contested presidential election, as then-Attorney General Shapiro did in 2020.
DePasquale has plenty of experience as a watchdog, serving as the state’s Auditor General — aka the watchdog-in-chief — between 2013 and 2021. He used his position to report on the over 3,217 untested rape kits in the Commonwealth, clearing a backlog by 90 percent in three years.
He lacks prosecutorial experience, but holds a degree from Widener University Law School and has worked as an attorney in private practice. His priorities, should he be elected AG, include defending reproductive rights, fighting corruption in public office and battling the opioid epidemic.
Dave Sunday has beenYork County district attorney since 2018, and led a team that prosecuted about 9,000 criminal cases each year. He has touted his record by saying that during his tenure, York County has seen a drop in both crime and its prison population, including a 36 percent drop in gun violence within the city of York. (These decreases are consistent with national trends.)
Figure: Dave Sunday, Republican candidate.
He’s a career prosecutor and, like DePasquale, a graduate of Widener Law. In 2013 the Justice Department appointed him as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. In that role, Sunday worked on drug, gang, and illegal gun cases. He cites prosecuting cases against those conducting elder scams and fighting the opioid epidemic as two galvanizing moments in his career, per reporting from Spotlight PA.
He has similar law and order priorities, should he be elected AG, saying in a primary debate that he believes failure to arrest, charge and prosecute people for illegal possession of firearms is a major driver of crime.
The Philadelphia Citizen’s Ultimate Job Interview of candidates for Attorney General of Pennsylvania takes place October 23 at the GRW Theater at Point Park’s University Center in Pittsburgh, PA from 6:30 to 8pm.
Every Voice, Every Vote funds Philadelphia media and community organizations to expand access to civic news and information. The coalition is led by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support for Every Voice, Every Vote in 2024 and 2025 is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Comcast NBC Universal, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, and Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.
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