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A Republican hasn't sat of the state attorney general's chair since Rob McKinnon did it more than a decade ago.

Can Republican Pete Serrano build on his five point primary election edge to leap from mayor of Pasco into statewide office?

Not if Democrat Nick Brown has anything to say about it.

The race for attorney general is next on Northwest.

Now.

You.

The Attorney General's office is the state's law firm, with more than 700 attorneys spread across 13 offices.

People sometimes forget the AG's office focuses on civil law, consumer advocacy, civil rights, elder abuse, environmental regulation and fraud.

It's not primary and criminal prosecution unless brought in by a county prosecutor or the governor.

Democrat Nick Brown is 47 and is the former U.S. attorney in Seattle who ran a staff of 75 lawyers.

He was counsel to Governor Inslee and is endorsed by The Seattle Times.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and the rest of the Democratic establishment.

Nick, thanks so much for joining us here on northwest.

Now, just for a warm up.

And it's kind of I know it's kind of a basic question, but, give us your why.

Why is it you're interested in being the attorney general here in Washington state?

Well, thanks.

And it's a pleasure to be here.

You know, I've spent most of my career as a lawyer working in the public sector, started my career in the Army, worked for the Department of Justice, had a great opportunity to work for Governor Inslee and Olympia as his general counsel.

And I just found the work at a state and local level to be incredibly important and and incredibly personally rewarding.

So the opportunity to serve as an attorney general here for my home state was was too much of a chance to pass up.

And, you know, most immediately prior was the U.S. attorney for Western Washington.

I really loved that job, but I just recognized how vitally important the aid his office is.

And I think I bring some unique experience and qualifications to the job.

Northwest now.

And, our program here is a little different from the other guys, because I doubt anywhere else you're going to be asked a question about the Public Records Act and about a phenomenon called legislative privilege that, the Washington State Legislature seems to think that they enjoy under the PRA.

What are your thoughts about legislative privilege?

Does it exist in your mind?

And talk a little bit about your commitment, to the PRA, the OPM, the Open Public Meetings Act, here in Washington State?

Well, you'd be surprised, actually, how often issues around the Public Records Act actually have come up during the campaign, how often people, ask questions about transparency in general.

And I think it's one of the things that makes Washington unique and in a very positive ways that we have a very robust public disclosure, requirements under law.

And, you know, for years when I worked for Governor Inslee, I served on the Sunshine Committee, which is the sort of nickname for that public records, accountability, committee, which works to make sure that the state is improving its transparency practices.

And I also served with Governor Inslee when, you know, he had committed during his campaign, when he first ran for governor, to never exercise the executive privilege, and that he became the first governor in Washington history to never use that privilege to exempt records from from public disclosure.

And because I was his general counsel with my obligation to make sure that we enforce that commitment.

And we did so the entire time.

And so I'm really proud of that.

And, you know, the Supreme Court is opined about the extent of legislative privilege.

I know it is still an issue about how much records, need to be disclosed under Washington State's PRA.

But I think the court has clarified the extent of that privilege to the extent that exists at all.

And I my commitment as the attorney general is is twofold.

One, it is our obligation to provide guidance to all the state agencies around this issue, including the legislature, but also to be a resource for for local governments across the country.

Excuse me, across the state, through using the Public Records Ombudsperson and providing some clear guidance to local jurisdictions, as well.

And so I'm excited about doing that.

I think there's real opportunity to be a larger resource for local agencies as well, to ensure that the public has the records that they're entitled to, and also to make sure that the culture of practice at the AG's office is one of transparency, where we're explaining, our, our victories and our losses, explaining why we take cases, why we don't, making sure that everything about that office is as accessible as possible to the public.

And I'm excited about doing that work.

I'll take, you know, the good intent with your answer there, talking about, working with cities and counties who are frequently on the other side of some of these PRA requests and subsequent lawsuits.

And you talked also, you did a great job in terms of segue into my follow up question on that was about the Ombuds office.

One guy right now, do you think that can be or should be expanded when you consider the total staff size of the Attorney General's office?

We got one guy right now is the Ombuds.

Well, you know, I don't want to make any determinations until I get into the position and have a real chance to evaluate workload, capacity, and the needs.

But I've certainly heard from a number of people how we can improve our our work in the Public Records Act area.

And I think one opportunity might be to expand that work, or at least make sure that more people are engaged in that responsibility.

But, you know, it's a little premature to talk about adding people to divisions and the like, we have a campaign to run.

I'm excited about prevailing.

I think we've got a very good shot of doing that.

And I do think that there are opportunities to improve the Public Records Act practices in the AG's office.

You've talked about the threat of a second, Trump presidency is being exponentially greater than the first one.

And I'm wondering, is the AG's office basically going to be fighting against the federal government from Olympia again?

Well, I think the analysis has to be the same no matter who is in Washington DC, or no matter where other potential threats or challenges arise.

I mean, I definitely do think the prospect of a second Trump administration would present a big challenge to the state of Washington.

But my intent is not to litigate just for the sake of litigation.

And so when we take office in January, the analysis will be, is is there an issue that prevents or is causing harm to Washingtonians?

Do we have a legal case to make, and are we the right entity to do that?

And I think if those things line up, then absolutely, you will continue to protect Washingtonians rights.

But that's going to be true whether it's a Trump presidency or Harris presidency.

I mean, I am a firm supporter of Vice President Harris.

And I think that it'll be a less of a danger to Washington's and frankly, with her in office.

But I'm going to bring that same analysis.

And, you know, my fundamental obligation will be to protect and help protect the people of Washington.

And so if we need to litigate, we will do that.

If we need to try to collaborate, we will do that.

There are lots of ways that we can solve some of the problems that and challenges that we're facing as a state.

But I am committed to being ready to to doing that work in the beginning of January of 2025.

Public safety and crime is a top of mind issue for the general public.

Now.

It's tough because the AG's office, I don't think I don't think this really lands on a lot of folks.

The AG's office is largely a civil, litigation firm, if you will, or group.

But a lot of that is being litigated in this campaign when it comes to criminal activity.

So what do you how can the AG's office impact that?

You've talked about root causes, which for a lot of people, I think on the right particularly is code for, oh, the bad guys really aren't responsible.

People are growing weary of that, I think.

What's your take on how the AG's office can step in on that issue, even though you're largely a civil outfit?

Well, there's we have to think about this comprehensively.

And I think you're right.

Public safety, criminal justice issues are probably the most important obligation of all leaders about how are we keeping people safe, how we defend people, and how do we make this a better place to live?

You are correct.

There's not a lot of original criminal jurisdiction in the Attorney General's office.

Most of that happens at a local level and county prosecutor's offices or through the federal government, the Department of Justice.

What I know that I bring to bear in this office is a tremendous amount of experience working on criminal justice issues.

You know, I started my career as an Army lawyer, doing both sides of the aisle as a criminal lawyer, served for many years in the Department of Justice.

I mean, I've literally prosecuted hundreds of cases involving gun crimes, crimes against children, violent crimes, offenses dealing with the drug crisis here in Washington.

And I know what it's like to lead big, complicated investigations working with federal and state, law enforcement officers and the community to try to keep us safe.

I highlight that because it's something that my opponent in this race doesn't have any experience in.

He's never done any criminal work whatsoever.

But I do think what the AG's office needs to be doing are a few different things.

One being a resource for local prosecutors offices, to handle and assist with cases where there's a need.

We cannot take on that jurisdiction unless a local jurisdiction asked or the governor's office ask.

But I want to make sure that we're partnering them with them as much as possible.

I want to bring in that same partnership with my former colleagues and the Department of Justice to make sure that the state is doing everything it can to be a resource for the federal cases that we're bringing, and also helping the legislature develop policy that is, makes sense and is understandable.

And having spent most of the last two decades in and around public safety issues, I know that I can bring that experience to bear to help them draft better policy.

But I will say that, you know, the other thing that really, I think makes safety sustainable, or all the other things that are the sort of ground, foundations for, for safety, that's housing.

That's an economy that keeps people employed.

That's an education system that gives people opportunity to progress.

That is that underlying social safety net of dealing with people's mental health issues and drug addiction issues.

And in each of those spaces, there's work the attorney general's office can do.

And that's really important.

And, you know, I, I firmly believe that law enforcement and accountability is a big piece of the puzzle, but it is not the only piece.

And I think in your analysis, and at the end of the day, have we been too easy, too hard, or about right on the criminal element in this state?

Well, I don't, I don't think I think it's a really simple, way to frame a question on a very complicated issue, frankly, and I and I and I think that's fair.

And I, you know, I think the public, rightly, is really concerned about this, but one of the obligations as a leader is not to, try to provide simple explanations for really complicated, hard problems.

And I think I've seen the legislature and local governments over the last many years grapple with the complexity and try to do things that increase public safety and we just need to keep working on this.

We need to adjust where we need see adjustments.

You know, 97% or so of people that we incarcerate are one day going to get out.

And so I think we need to both hold people accountable, but also make sure that we're doing everything we can to prevent people from going there in the first place.

Or when people get out to making sure that they don't re-offend.

And that is those things that make us sustainable.

And I think that if we simply focus on, the law enforcement incarceration piece, which is most of my background, if we only do that, it's not going to be lasting.

So we have to do that.

Plus all the things that make us sustainable.

Bob Ferguson has done a lot of job recovering, hundreds of millions dollars, from the Employment Security Department fraud that the state suffered from during Covid are still about 200 million bucks outstanding.

However, I know that as the dollar amounts get smaller, recovery gets more and more difficult.

Are you going to commit to continuing to try to pursue that?

Is that a pathway and an avenue?

I know I don't want to, you know, direct how your staff spends its time and energy, but is that a pathway, that you might still expend some resources trying to recover that?

Yeah.

I mean, what I'll say is that it seems from the outside that there's some unfinished business to work on.

Again, once you take office, you have to make a full assessment of where the workload is and what the priorities are.

But certainly, just as a citizen resident of Washington, and being very familiar with the attorney General's office, it does seem like there's more work to do.

You know, in my career as a prosecutor and as the U.S. attorney, I've helped lead big fraud cases before.

Some of the most important work I did early in my career was dealing with the collapse of the mortgage industry, where people were taken advantage of and defrauded.

And I know that there's more work to bear.

And I think, you know, one of the things that people don't often understand about the attorney general's office is that they often are a revenue generator for the public, through the Consumer Protection Act, going after people that have caused harm.

And I want to make sure we don't lose focus of that work.

Last 20s for you, Nick.

What is something folks should know about you, but they don't?

Well, you know, I'm not sure what people don't know, having been campaigning for a while.

But it is an office really important for people's lives.

And, you know, we see the headlines.

But the AG's office has a tremendous impact on on people across the state in big ways and in small ways.

You know, about me that they may not know, you know, in addition to running for office, most of my time is dedicated to my children and being a father, and showing up at soccer games and Cub scout, events.

And so, it's exciting for me to be able to campaign and get to know people and share more about my story and experience, because this job really matters is and really important.

Nick Brown, thanks so much for coming to northwest.

Now.

Thank you very much.

Republican Pete Serrano is the mayor of Pasco, in charge of hundreds of employees at a $250 million budget.

A good bit of his legal work focused on the clean up at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

In addition to his working for a California consulting firm and the conservative Silent Majority Foundation.

Pete, thanks so much for coming to northwest.

Now have a conversation about your bid for the attorney General's office here in the state of Washington.

Their first question is kind of a cliche.

I know it is, but I want to ask you anyway.

What's your why?

Why is it you want to be the AG?

Well, it really boils down to for people in my life my wife PJ, my daughter Sophia, Lily and my son Max.

And I want to make sure that they have a good place in Washington.

We've seen crime increase, we've seen costs increase, but we've seen, you know, everything that's directly impacting us, whether it's in the schools or just simply the ability to worship those types of rights are not being protected effectively.

That's what I do in my day job.

And I think, well, gee, if I do it in a small nonprofit organization, how much more powerful and effective could I be as the attorney general?

Washington.

So that's kind of my real kind of global way.

Talk a little bit about public safety and crime.

It wasn't my first question, but I want to jump to it since you mentioned it.

You know, a lot of people tend to forget that the AG's office is basically a civil operation.

So your, your ability to really impact the law and justice on the crime and punishment piece is fairly limited.

With that said, how can and and AG step in and impact that?

If you believe things have gone too far when it comes to crime and punishment to far the wrong way?

Right.

You know, there are several ways.

You know, by statute, the attorney general actually has the ability to go in and not only assist, but when a prosecutor or public defender is not doing their job, say, hey, you have two options.

Do it or get it done by my office so we can land resources.

We can finance resources.

We can also offer grant funding to to law enforcement agencies, to prosecutors and again, public defenders.

Let's not forget both sides of the coin, but I'd say one thing that really hits home as the mayor of Pasco and as a city council member, prior to that, we received funds from the opioid settlement.

You know, that's a very that's a civil litigation heavy issue, right?

And that brought millions of dollars down to Pasco for treatment.

And we plan to use it.

And then it almost got yanked from us as the attorney general sought to renegotiate the settlement agreement.

We have a treatment facility that we've got planned and we've got, private funding for and grant funding as well as this money.

So there's a lot of opportunity to bring back home, you know, small municipalities, Pasco albeit growing, you know, 80,000 people.

But but that civil piece feeding into the criminal piece.

Yeah absolutely.

So there's a lot of dovetailing here that's going to be successful.

And the attorney general can affect every Washingtonians lives.

Now I'm going to go back up to my first question.

And northwest now is going to be a little unusual in this way in terms of what my top question is, and that is the public records and open public meetings act in this, in this state.

I do a show on this every year.

I'm a member of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, which has been very critical of Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who's oftentimes sided with the small municipalities and the small districts against requesters.

You represent a city.

So you're one of the guys with the Association of Washington Justice Cities a lot of times fighting against organizationally, not you personally against public records request and what are called vexatious requesters.

And my top question on that topic and that issue is, is there such a thing as legislative privilege?

The legislature has has asserted that they have a privilege under the PRA.

I don't read it anywhere in the statute.

What are your thoughts on that?

I'd agree with you there.

I think they should be open and transparent.

And one of the things that I've said is my top priorities.

Obviously, public safety has to be number one.

And while we're more of a civil firm, that has to be the organization's top mind.

We have to have a safe Washington.

But right behind it is not only giving good, constitutionally sound advice, but advising on openness and transparency.

In addition to being, the mayor of Pasco and having to deal with public records from that end.

You know, I also submit Public Records Act requests.

You know, again, I operate a small nonprofit organization, and sometimes it's much more all the time.

It's much, much easier to get information through the Public Records Act and rather than through discovery, especially with our attorney general's office.

And so I think that's a huge gaping hole that exists in this office.

And I've said this all along, since day one of the campaign, one of the first resources and assets I want to look at is what does that pra, the Public Records Act team, look like?

Are they understaffed?

I mean, you read you're read my mind.

I was going to say we got one guy in the Ombuds office.

Do we need more than one guy as the ombuds?

Absolutely.

I think we can bring it in.

We can bring folks in.

They can actually work with the AG's office, through the Ombuds office.

And really give that direction.

I think there be a value in having someone that just focuses that squarely on the PRA element and have someone else that maybe does other perfunctory duties.

So I think having a couple people in there, but then also having that flow down to the PRA team and saying, hey, look, this is what we need from you.

If you can't get it.

What are the resources?

Is it technology?

Is it finances?

Is a body count.

So that's why I think splitting the ombuds office there and really having someone who's just specifically focused and focused on the transparency element, and then having someone else who runs kind of the remaining business elements of the office would be beneficial.

You talked a little bit about the nonprofit talk, a little bit about the Silent Majority Foundation.

You've sued to overturn, some, some of the restrictions on guns in Washington state.

What do you see as problematic of some of the new things that have come down the pike out of the legislature when it comes to gun gun restrictions, gun laws?

And, how does your organization, how do those things fit together?

And then where does that lead you as the AG?

Yeah.

You know, I mean, I've said this all along, if I need to recuse myself because things are too close to home, I'll do that.

And I'm certainly working on I've got a team that works under me if I have attorneys collectively, myself included, and I've kind of bifurcated my office.

And I do have a team that works exclusively on the firearms questions.

And so I've got the ability to turn cases over and fully step out of them.

In fact, my lead counsel on that is is really the lead counsel, and I'm there as kind of that general counsel oversight, providing the additional information, prov So, so I do think there's a way to have turnover as far as what's coming down the road.

I've heard everything from, you know, a permit to own a firearm rather than just a purchase one.

Limitations on the number of firearms that will be purchased in every 30 days.

Which, interestingly enough, if that's going to be proposed in 25 after a California Superior Court loss, I think it'll be hard pressed for the legislature to say this is, you know, constitutionally sound.

And that's one of the things that I've always said is, listen, I may not agree with something, but I want my team.

I want like a bipartisan team of, you know, 5 to 7 attorneys to do research memoranda.

And we come in with these questions, whether it's First Amendment, you know, free speech or freedom, religion, or it's Second Amendment firearms questions.

And we wrestle with these as an executive team, if you will, and then say, hey, legislature, this is where you're outside of.

You're really out of your bounds.

So assault weapons ban magazine capacities.

Those of you that you're not hanging with us, I don't foresee that, you know, I mean, it'll be interesting to see where it hap where it goes.

Right now, the magazine capacity is before the Supreme Court.

It's fully briefed, and we're waiting on oral arguments.

The assault weapons ban case is still before the Superior Court.

I mean, obviously, I'm going to remove myself from Silent Majority Foundation.

That just that's we have to have that bifurcation.

It wouldn't be ethically sound.

And I really don't foresee myself being involved.

That said, if people are going to ask my opinion, I'm going to give it, you know, I mean, the leader of the agency.

So there will be opportunity to opine on it.

But I'm not going to be involved in the day to day litigation.

Bob Ferguson went to war against the Trump administration from his office in Olympia.

You know, taking kind of a national perspective, on that, if that's not your intent.

I would ask, however, if you'd be willing to swing into action to take on the feds should something be threatened, should rights be threatened here in Washington state?

Absolutely.

So and that's regardless of whether it's Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.

I am willing to step in.

You know, I've worked for the Department of Energy of the United States government.

I've actually my started my law career suing the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

I have no qualms taking off the gloves with the feds.

Same thing.

I want to make sure our state agencies are well advised and they understand their constitutional instructions and authorities, as well as their legislative authorities.

So it doesn't matter to me where it comes from.

We've got to get the right sound advice.

If we've got to challenge the US government to get that and protect Washingtonians.

We're going to do that again regardless of who's in office.

Provided a nice segue there into talking about state agencies you've been discussing in your campaign, issues and problems you see with, with non-legislative unilateral rulemaking and policymaking.

So much of the federal and state infrastructure when it comes to, rules and regs, is promulgated by staff and non elected.

What's your problem with that?

Do you.

Well, do you have a problem with that.

What are those problems and what can the AG do about it.

I do have a problem with that because you have non-elected as you mentioned, you have people who work for the government or work for whatever it is, you know, some sort of NGO, non-governmental organization giving advice and, you know, sometimes offering money, right.

Or straight up writing the legislation, you know, to they are and they're coming in as lobbyists, if you will.

And that's obviously not what they're doing.

And so when you look at that, these individuals need some sort of accountability.

And when that accountability is a four year change over at the gubernatorial because the head of the agency leaves, that's inadequate.

The attorney general needs to step in and say, again, like I said, there's there's a box right.

Here's what your bounds and meets are.

And if you're outside of those bounds or meets, you need to be stopping this activity.

And the attorney general needs to be giving that advice.

You're beyond your scope.

And I've said this all along.

Don't put me in the position where I have to ethically either advise on the Constitution.

I will always do that.

But if I have to defend you knowing that you are violating constitutional rights, I can't ethically make that choice.

Don't put me in that position.

They'll put you in that box to defend your bad actions.

Exactly.

And I say that to my clients now.

I say that to to everyone I talk with.

Same thing with the city of Pasco.

I say that to our staff.

Don't make me do the bad decision.

Yeah.

Obviously it's at the end.

It's our decision.

You know, as a council, Bob Ferguson's done a lot of job recovering a lot of the money.

I think it totaled 5 to $600 million.

The big fraud rip off of the state employment agency, an unemployment insurance program here in the state of Washington, about $200 million still remains out there.

And of course, the smaller that number that gets gets, the more difficult those particular dollars are to recover.

Do you think you'd stick with that as the AG?

Absolutely.

I mean, where the people of Washington have been ripped off.

I want to take that.

Don't forget, there is almost $1.2 billion that went missing related to Covid funds.

And that was come out of our state auditor telling us that.

So I would want to chase that money.

So I may not have that $200 million key step one, but it be in the in the bailiwick, if you will, where the people of Washington have been taken advantage of.

The attorney general needs to step in.

And that's regardless of whether it's a 90 year old, you know, elderly folk that are getting ripped off either online or through the television or the phone, or just buying a warranty on a bad car, whatever the case is, or if it's $1.2 billion that went missing at the governor's discretion, we got to chase the money, find the money and bring it back to our people, or repay the US government if that's what's going to be required.

If what, that 1.2 billion.

Pete, thanks so much for coming in northwest now.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate your time.

The role of the Attorney General's office in recent years seems to have changed, morphing into a lawsuit factory against political opponents with the ideas of transparency and consumer protection still in place but feeling like a distant second.

The bottom line A good AG's office advocates for our collective quality of life, and either new attorney general would do well to keep that in mind.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web at kbtc.org.

Stream it through the PBS app, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest.

Now, until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

You.