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More at OHEA.org The candidates for attorney general this week in The state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

We're continuing a month of conversations with the candidates for the four executive offices besides governor.

This week, the candidates for attorney general.

In alphabetical order, here's Republican candidate Keith Faber, the Ohio auditor.

me.

So one reason that you give for running for AG is to stand up for constitutional rights and protect religious liberty, and that working alongside President Trump, Keith will fight against federal policies that undermine state authority.

But President Trump has suggested some policies that would take away the state's authority to administer elections, perhaps to.

He's tried to authorize the Department of Defense to call up the National Guard has said Democrat Amy Acton wins the governor's race.

He's not going to send federal aid to Ohio.

So how do you square those things?

President Trump says a lot of things.

Let's actually look at what he does.

And the number one thing in Attorney General does is promote justice.

And that's why I'm running to be attorney general.

I've got a record of promoting justice as somebody who's prosecuted criminals, somebody who has legislated laws that protect our kids from child molesters, and to somebody who has a strong record of experience in running a complex state agency and doing all of that.

We will continue to fight for things that make Ohioans safer.

And that's one of the reasons that law enforcement through Ohio has has endorsed me and supported me, because they know I'll have their back.

To keep your community safe, the AG is going to have to deal with a lot of AI and not only scammers using it to defraud consumers, but also to defraud governments.

You've talked about using AI in a way to try to identify, say, Medicaid fraud.

There are plenty of people who don't trust AI, especially with their personal information.

And your opponent has suggested barring AI from accumulating or tracking personal data in his 12 point privacy protection plan.

What would you do specifically on AI?

Well, first of privacy.

First of all, AI is ambiguous.

Every time you turn on your cell phone, you're using AI.

Every time you're using technology using some form of AI, the best form of AI is the kind that we can see transparent and track and know what it's doing.

Frankly, we use AI or we call it that, analytics in the auditor's office to try and look at larger batches and numbers and do better auditing to identify where it's going.

AI is here.

We will continue to use AI, but I think it's realistic that people expect privacy, that they expect that their information is not going to be stolen and used.

And candidly, as the guy who's been out there fighting back against cyber fraud.

I am very concerned about hackers and other people who are going to try and take advantage of it.

That's why we're going to have a unit of the Attorney General's office to hack the hackers and help Ohioans be protected to some extent from cyber fraud.

And we will use technology that's there and technology as it develops to push back against those scammers.

Heck, every single week as auditor, I get notification that somebody has hit another Ohio community for hundreds of thousands of dollars, much less what we're seeing against our grandparents and our parents.

They're doing really good jobs of social engineering without AI at AI to that, and we've got more grounds to be concerned.

We will use the technology that's there to fight back and keep Ohioans safe.

Flock cameras have gotten a lot of support from law enforcement as crime solving and crime fighting tools, including current AG Andy Wilson.

They have a lot of critics, though, who say that they're recording and storing more information than just license plates.

And even Vivek Swami, your candidate for governor, has said that they could lead to an authoritarian surveillance state.

So what do you support with regard to flock cameras?

Look, we know that flock cameras, if you ask law enforcement, were one of the most important law enforcement tools to come along since DNA.

But it's important that we have safeguards on them.

And that's why I have a very clear position on flock cameras.

We need the legislature to pass a law that says, if you're using it for proper law enforcement processes and procedures, with safeguards and an audit trail, okay.

But if you use it illegally or you use it for non law enforcement purposes to spy on your girlfriend, you're committing a felony.

You're going to lose your shield, you're going to go to jail.

It is very important that we also protect that data so that that data remains private and confidential.

The legislature can do that.

We will support that.

Look, I am all for making sure that we put serious guardrails on flock cameras, both in the use and law enforcement.

And if they're using it for a mosaic to follow somebody around a community, I think you need a warrant for that.

And so all of this is part of the process that we've been very clear on this.

And candidly, it isn't unlike what we do with other law enforcement databases.

But I can tell you the case in Columbus was solved with flock cameras, a case in Marion where a young person was abducted by somebody who met them in an online gaming scenario, was solved as a result of flock cameras.

It is helping keep our community safe.

We can do both.

We can do both safety and for consumers and citizens, and allow law enforcement to tool to catch bad guys.

You say you'll form an anti-corruption task force if you're elected AG focusing on investigating bribery, theft, conflicts of interest, misuse of public funds, fraud against government programs, and other serious abuses of public trust.

Your opponent says in your 26 years here, the state has seen three major scandals in Coin Gate, Eckert and House Bill six and says if you were serious about corruption, you would be not.

You would have done something before this point.

But I want to ask you specifically, are you committed to prosecuting the executives in the first energy case related to House Bill six?

Sure.

You went to a lot of stuff and let me start up and back up by saying I have prosecuted 171 public officials, Republicans, Democrats and independents who are lying, stealing and cheating.

Every one of them will tell you I'm serious about prosecuting fraud in.

The first thing prosecutor does is get the facts.

I think it's important.

And you have an obligation as a prosecutor to remind everybody that when you're prosecuting somebody, they're innocent until proven guilty.

And in this case, I don't have all the facts.

I only know the facts that are out in the public.

If the facts support prosecution, we will prosecute till the cows come home.

My record says where somebody has facts to support prosecution, we prosecute every single time.

And that's the answer here.

And I don't know how my opponent can come out without knowing the facts, without being briefed and say that, oh, I'll absolutely prosecute.

That's called political prosecution.

And the canons of ethics really, really say you shouldn't do that.

And so the fact of the matter is, is that and then he goes out and tries to say that I somehow am going to plan on letting them go.

Really, there isn't a single person that I've had an opportunity to prosecute that we haven't prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Former AG Dave Yost has been critical of the lack of transparency and accountability with Jobs Ohio, which can be audited but by an auditor of its own selection.

He noted it as an example the $60,000 in jobs Ohio paid to a podcaster who was involved in an inappropriate relationship with former Ohio State University president Ted Carter.

He supported bipartisan legislation to require jobs Ohio to submit to a state audit every two years and publicly disclose all corporate partnerships and sponsorships, among other things.

So I'm wondering what you're going to do with regard to jobs, Ohio and like your opponent has talked about a potential conflict of interest with the chair of Jobs Ohio.

What are you going to do about jobs Ohio?

Look, as auditor, the one of the first things I did was sit down with jobs, Ohio and the then lieutenant governor and worked out a new transparency arrangement with them.

And that took care of almost all the concerns Dave had as auditor.

And that's why we haven't had transparency issues with jobs.

Ohio since I've been honored.

The most important thing is, is the state auditor's office now sets the parameter for the audit that's done by an independent professional accounting firm, and that is there.

It's transparent.

But look, if the legislature wants to pass additional authority for the auditor's office or the attorney General's office to grab the jobs, God bless them.

I'm for it.

But in the end, it's different making sure that we have a entity that can go out and create jobs in the state like jobs Ohio has done.

And that is the most important part.

Jobs.

Ohio is now transparent with regard to its salaries, with with regard to its contracts, with regard to all of its internal operations.

And so can it be more transparent?

Absolutely.

And I'm for it.

Your office reported last year that 39 of 60 companies with state financial incentives failed to meet their job creation commitments, and they were listed as non-compliant.

That 65% of those.

You found that since 2021, no action had been taken against about 40 companies that had fallen short of those agreements.

So can and should the AG be doing something about that?

Sure.

The AG gets all of those referrals.

They first go to the agency, and then the agency has the opportunity to send those to the prosecutor or their firms.

We will prosecute and we will go after collection on all of those things who breach their contract.

That's an important role for the AG's office.

The problem is, in the past, the Department of Commerce or other entities come back and say, yeah, they said they were going to create 100 jobs.

They only created 90.

Okay.

We're going to give them a little extra time.

That is certainly within their discretion as the entity awarding the grants.

But if you promise to create 100 jobs and you don't create 100 jobs, I think there ought to be some accountability.

And the Attorney General's office will do that.

When I'm ag, we will go.

After all of that.

You've said you want to elevate, by the way, it's auditor.

We identified those problems.

And so we gave it to these folks asking them to act.

You have said that you want to elevate the state crime lab, which you said has delays now and unacceptable delays now, according to what you've said about it, how did that happen under former AG's Dave Yost and Mike DeWine?

And what can you do to change that?

Well, the governor DeWine, when he was AG, actually had a big national problem.

Big state problem is the rape kits that weren't being tested.

They spent a lot of resources to get those tested.

Dave comes into office, and he had other things he had to focus on.

And the rape kit number seemed to have gone up again.

We're going to one.

Elevate BCI by asking for additional resources, put on additional shifts, try and get the work done.

BCI is the state crime lab is you know that.

Does the CSI work throughout Ohio except for really the big urban cities, and they need to have the resources to back up our prosecutors and sheriffs.

That's one of the reasons my support and ideas that we're going to do to fix BCI, that I've got 87% of Ohio's county sheriffs endorsing me, 87%.

That's a record.

And one of the things that they're very concerned about is making sure that they get DNA tests and ballistic tests and all the other things back timely.

And some things are taking 90 to 120 days to get back from BCI.

That's just simply unacceptable.

We've got to improve the process, improve customer service, and make sure that they have the resources to keep our community safe.

The AG's office, the other half of it, besides the law enforcement, half is the consumer protection half.

And it's basically the largest consumer protection firm in Ohio and a lot of authority.

And you have said that you want to fight for Ohioans who have had health insurance claims denied wrongfully.

So insurance is a big industry in Ohio.

How do you go after that?

Well, it's easy if you've got health insurance companies, particularly big health insurance companies that have adopted a business practice where we're going to deny claims that are otherwise valid, calling them unnecessary or whatever excuse they're going to give.

And then ultimately, if the consumer fights hard enough and long enough that we ultimately pay 90% of those, we're going to go after those companies for unfair and deceptive practices.

The fact of the matter is, when you talk to providers, whether it's hospitals or doctors, they tell you this appears to be a scheme that health insurance companies are using.

They're going to put consumers through literal hell and going through their internal claims process.

But if you stick to it, almost all of them are going to get paid.

That's garbage.

Ohio consumers deserve better, and we will have a unit in the Attorney General's office to handle that and facilitate it.

Here's the dirty little secret.

As a legislator, whenever we would get those consumer calls, almost always we would hear back from the big insurance company said, oh, we've looked at that and we don't know why that was denied.

It should have been paid.

You shouldn't have to call your state legislator to get your valid claims paid.

We will go after them.

And if they're violating the law, we will sue them in federal court if necessary.

And finally, you have agreed to a debate with your opponent, which is interesting because Mike DeWine didn't debate in 2022.

Senator John Huston is not committed to a debate.

So why why do you feel a debate is important?

Look, I'm always willing to sit down and have a candid conversation.

I talk to you a lot.

I've talked to other people where we can have a candid, fact based conversation.

I think it will be helpful for Ohioans to see the difference in experience and the difference in knowledge, and give them a first hand opportunity to see the two candidates one on one.

Now, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, John Kulewicz, an Upper Arlington City Council member and a longtime attorney in private practice in Columbus.

welcome.

So you say one of the reasons that you're running for attorney general is that you want to make the economy work better for everyone in Ohio.

What is the AG's office have to do with the economy?

There's a lot that an active attorney general can do to make the economy work better for everybody, starting with beefing up the fight against consumer fraud and consumer fraud, artists are becoming increasingly sophisticated, increasingly devious, increasingly global.

We need to step up the fight, put more resources behind that, make it a priority again, as it used to be, to protect people from consumer fraud.

Make sure they know who they can call it the attorney general's office.

Make sure that we're staff to be able to triage the complaints that come in and get them to the right, into the right hands, to get something done about it.

I want consumer fraud artists around the world to know that shalt not come to Ohio, because we're going to go after you if you do.

Number number two, it means protecting people against wage theft.

I've heard great disappointment and concern all around the state of Ohio about the need for a more aggressive pursuit of wage theft claims, but an employer does not pay the employee what the employer promised to pay or misclassified over time as regular time, or treats the W-2 employee as an independent contractor or goes out of business.

The attorney general should be going to bat for those people.

It makes my blood boil.

If somebody does not get paid what they were promised to be paid.

Our our labor is the one thing of value that we all have to offer in this market.

So as Attorney General, I would go to bat for those people.

The attorney general can play a lot more active role in rate making proceedings to protect us from exorbitant utility rates, in particular electric rates, which in central Ohio have gone up 22% over the past year and there is no end in sight.

And it's the same essentially throughout the state of Ohio.

We need a much more aggressive approach to monopolies, companies that collude to instead of competing by lowering our prices, they collude to make deals to corner a market and raise our prices.

They're violating the law, the state and federal antitrust laws, if they do that, and they're making it too expensive for us to to live and to afford to buy or rent the things that we need.

You seem to focus primarily on the consumer protection side of the attorney General's office.

And in fairness, it's basically the largest consumer protection and legal firm in the state of Ohio.

But what about the law enforcement side, which your opponent talks a lot about upgrading and elevating the crime lab, increasing support for the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy?

How do you present that as when you start talking about getting support from law enforcement, many of whom have ended up behind your opponent?

Yeah.

And the reason that they've been that behind my opponent, they explained, has nothing to do with us in Ohio.

It's their concern about the national political environment.

So but obviously it is a very important responsibility of the attorney general to oversee the training and certification of our law enforcement personnel in the state of Ohio as a member of the Upper Arlington City Council for seven years now, I've taken that very seriously, and we made sure that our officers get the training that they need to deal with situations, that unprecedented situations or situations that we would not have thought of before, and to handle the routine day to day life or death situations that they encounter.

I want to make sure that the Bureau of Criminal Investigation has the resources that it needs.

I've heard from judges all throughout the state of Ohio concerns about the about delays and processing forensic evidence at BCI and what that translates into costly trial delays that can jam up the whole system.

So that's very important as well.

And the principal responsibility of the attorney general when it comes to criminal prosecution is backing up our county prosecutors.

99.9% of the prosecutions in the state of Ohio for felonies are done by our county prosecutors.

The role of the attorney general is to stand behind them when those go to court after conviction, to be able to defend, keep the keep the bad guys in jail, defend the defend the convictions.

And you do that by through litigation ordinarily in federal court habeas corpus.

I've got the experience that matters there.

I've been a lawyer for 44 years.

I've argued in one tough cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of Ohio, and federal and state courts all around the state.

So I want to stand firmly with our county prosecutors and law enforcement personnel throughout the state of Ohio in defending the convictions that they have obtained.

How does your experience as a litigator in the private sector stack up against someone who is prosecuted, criminals who's run an executive statewide agency?

How does your experience translate and make you better than the experience that he brings to the table?

It's the experience that matters.

For 44 years, I have been I've been litigating cases in every at every level in the land there.

And you develop the instincts, the intuition that you need to be able to make split second decisions.

So you have to make their cases of enormous consequence like that.

My opponent has evidently has tried one criminal case in his 35 year career.

Congratulations to him for doing that.

I don't think that that that gives you the the overview.

The experience, the insight that you need for dealing with litigation all over the state of Ohio on every, every single day of the week.

Flock cameras have gotten a lot of support from law enforcement as being an essential crime fighting tool.

But they have a lot of critics who say that they're recording and storing more than just license plates.

And even you've got candidates for governor talking about what they would do about flock cameras and state lawmakers as well.

What do you think should happen with flock cameras?

There are two things that we should do with flock cameras, and I've supported the use of flock cameras in the city of Upper Arlington on the city council.

But two but there are two very important changes we need to make, and I believe on a statewide basis.

Number one, we need to we need to provide for more strict data sharing protocols.

I'll share my data.

I a city will share my data with you.

A city if you'll follow the same standards that we've adopted to protect the privacy of our residents.

And secondly, the data is shared for up to 30 days.

And in my view, we have to bifurcate that for for the first 48 hours, that data ought to be accessible through strict protocols to to any authorized law enforcement officer on that basis alone, because that's hot evidence.

You have a crime in progress.

You have children being abducted, cars being stolen, people, people with dementia driving off and need to be found.

They need they need immediate access to that data.

After 48 hours, from 48 hours through 30 days, it seems to me that that that we should follow the same process that we need.

If somebody wants to see your cell phone data, for example, they've got to get a warrant based upon probable cause from a magistrate, a third, third party magistrate, so to speak, or a judge.

So I think I think it would we would all be a lot safer in our privacy, would be a lot better protected if we would adopt that as a statewide standard.

The AG has to deal with a lot of AI.

Scammers are using it to go after consumers and governments.

You've suggested barring AI from accumulating or tracking personal data in a 12 point privacy protection plan that you put out.

Your opponent's campaign says that that plan is vague and lax.

You lack the legislative experience and prosecutorial experience to see it through on those specific recommendations.

What would you do with regard to AI and how do you define what it is?

Well, defining it is a first issue.

You know, artificial intelligence is pervasive.

It is now spread to all aspects of our lives.

So number one, we have to define it.

There's no I you are right.

I myself cannot define it.

You need to bring a lot of people around the table to understand what we're dealing with here.

It's urgent because we've gotten hammered by globalization in Ohio.

We've gotten hammered by automation, and we're going to get hammered by artificial intelligence if we don't do something effective and promptly, you know, from there.

Once, once we identify the problem, that will go a long way to leading us to what the solutions are that we need.

And that is a matter.

This is new.

Artificial intelligence is new to all of us.

And so we need we need to develop new ways of thinking about new ways of technology and not not not simply rely upon the solutions of the past.

You've criticized your opponent for saying that he'll form an anti-corruption task force focused on investigating serious abuses of public trust, when there have been three major scandals in his years here in Columbus being Coin Gate, Eckert and House Bill six, he said to me that he's prosecuted 171 public officials who would tell you he's serious about fraud.

He notes that you were on the board of the Columbus Zoo, and after you left the board, there was a massive criminal scandal in which five people, five former zoo officials were convicted, $2.3 million in misappropriated funds happened.

Should you have seen that coming?

Well, what my opponent does not tell you is that I was the one board member over the years who, when we got our our annual report at the board meeting, I brought a litany of questions to our auditors to probe probe behind the audit.

The board members under the law are entitled to take audit reports to face value.

I went beyond that.

I deliberately probed them about about the internals, what they found, what are the things we were missing here like that?

So I was the one board member who did make an effort year after year to, to to look into that.

My opponent, my opponent has not convicted 171 people.

County prosecutors convicted those people.

Some of his staff worked on on those cases.

But with all due respect, if I understand that claim my opponent is making, I think he is taking credit for the work of the other people have done.

I want to ask you to about the former First Energy executives who are set to be tried again.

You've said that you would go forward with that.

Yes.

How can you say that without seeing the evidence in this case?

Well, we've seen the evidence that was presented at the first trial.

We know that a grand jury of our peers issued the first indictments.

We know that a grand jury of our peers has issued the second indictments.

We've had experienced prosecutors running that prosecution from the attorney general's office.

This is a case where we don't have the luxury in this particular case of waiting, once I take office, when I get around to it, I'll take a look at the evidence.

This is a case that's set for trial on January 4th.

There's a trial team hard at work, and if my opponent had had more experience in litigation, what he would know is that trial preparation is a very intense exercise.

You have to spend day after day, week after week, working with witnesses, working with documents, working with the information that you have to to be prepared to do justice.

In that case, it is a horribly demoralizing effect on a trial team.

For somebody who has a 50 over 50 shot of being the next boss to say, well, I may or may not go forward with that prosecution.

If you're on the trial team, you're having to you're having to miss your daughter's softball game, your son's soccer game, a family meeting or a family dinner like that just so you can be there working with the witnesses, working with the documents has a horribly demoralizing effect to tell people, well, I may or may not go forward with it, you know, how can you expect people to make the sacrifices that they need to make to get ready for a trial like that?

When you're saying, I may or may not go after it.

So I don't think we have the we don't have the luxury here.

I know two attorneys, two attorneys general on the row.

I now have felt comfortable going forward with that.

I've seen the evidence in the first trial.

I understand what's at stake.

I've got every reason to go forward with that case.

And just real quick, your opponent has said he supports the death penalty.

Where do you stand on it?

I have no categorical objection to the death penalty.

I think it must be reserved for the most horrible of crimes only.

And we have to be exceedingly careful if we if we seek to add death, when we seek to add specifications to an indictment or when we seek it at trial, and obviously when we administer it under the Eighth Amendment to avoid the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

There are standards that the US Supreme Court has set forth.

What what we need to do in the mode of execution, the methods of execution and the protocols we have.

The attorney general has a responsibility to very carefully vet those to make sure we are not violating the Eighth Amendment.

Next week, my conversations with the candidates continues with the contenders for Ohio auditor, Democrat Annette Blackwell and Republican Frank la Rose.

You can find my interviews with candidates for governor, Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy And last week's interviews with the secretary of state candidates, Democrat Alison Russo and Republican Robert Sprague, in our archive at statenews.org.

And that is it for this week.

Please check out our website at statenews.org or find us online by searching State of Ohio Show.

You can get our Ohio State House alerts by texting state news to this number, and also listen for our podcast, The Ohio State House Scoop on Monday morning.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at Porter Wright.com.

Porter Wright.

inspired every day.

And from the Ohio education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools every child deserves.

More at OHEA.org