The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has had an unusual amount of turnover since 2016, when then-Attorney General Kathleen Kane was convicted on criminal felony charges and forced to resign.
Solicitor General Bruce Castor then assumed the office as Acting Attorney General until Gov. Tom Wolf nominated Bruce Beemer to serve out Kane’s remaining term.
Josh Shapiro was elected attorney general in 2016, reelected in 2020, then left the office to become governor after the 2022 election, creating yet another vacancy. He appointed Michelle Henry as his successor. Pennsylvania voters will now choose their own top cop in the November 5 general election.
Two men vying for the post, Democrat Eugene DePasquale and Republican Dave Sunday, recently took part in a televised debate, and both men spoke with the DVJournal.
Sunday, now serving his second term as York County district attorney, said public safety is the primary reason he’s in the race.
“If communities aren’t safe, nothing else matters,” said Sunday.
DePasquale, 53, served two terms as auditor general and represented part of York County in the Pennsylvania House from 2007 to 2013. He also ran unsuccessfully for Congress against Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) in 2020.
“Number one, we must make sure we will protect our democracy. We must protect everyone’s right to vote and make sure the vote is counted accurately,” he said.
Eugene DePasquale
DePasquale told DVJournal that while serving as auditor general, he held “bad actors accountable no matter who they are,” and he is “the right fit to be the Pennsylvania attorney general.”
“I have a record of protecting the community, protecting voting rights, protecting reproductive freedom, and doing it in a balanced way that holds anyone who messes up accountable.”
As auditor general, his investigations uncovered over 3,000 untested rape kits and 58,000 unanswered calls to the child abuse hotline.
“I will always protect a woman’s right to choose,” he said during the debate.
He told DVJournal, “I am very concerned about all these scammers trying to scam our seniors. I’m very worried about prescription drug prices and these pharmacy benefit managers…jacking up prescription drug prices.”
Sunday insists the attorney general needs a prosecutorial and criminal law background. Even before he was elected York County District Attorney in 2017, Sunday, 41, a Navy veteran, worked as a prosecutor.
Sunday says his emphasis is not only on putting criminals in jail but finding ways to rehabilitate those who’ve committed minor offenses. He does that through working with community and church groups, as well as mental health and addiction treatment, seeking “accountability and redemption.”
Under his watch in York County, there’s been a 30 percent crime reduction, an 80 percent drop in gang-related gun violence, a 26 percent decline in drug overdoses, and a 75 percent reduction in the homicide rate.
Sunday said he’ll fight to end human trafficking, and he will have “zero tolerance” for fentanyl suppliers.
“Our children are facing a brutal epidemic of fentanyl where 15 Pennsylvanians are killed every day,” said Sunday. He noted fentanyl is often laced into marijuana and various pills, so someone might not even realize they’d taken it.
During the debate, DePasquale attacked Sunday for “going soft on sexual predators and having failed convictions on the gang rape case.”
Sunday said DePasquale picked a couple of cases to criticize out of the 40,000 his office handled in the last 15 years.
“I’d like to compare those [cases] with my opponent’s, but he’s literally never even prosecuted one,” said Sunday.
“He would need a tutorial on day one on how to find a courtroom, what it means to have an adversarial system, what it means to work through defense attorneys, what it means to advocate in front of a judge, what it does mean to work in front of a jury. Pennsylvanians deserve better. This isn’t about political advancement. This is about public safety.”
Sunday said DePasquale’s investigations as auditor general were civil, not criminal.
“I’m the only one who’s run a complicated state agency. That’s the leadership we’ll need on day one,” said DePasquale.
Both Sunday and DePasquale say they will protect senior citizens from scammers. Sunday noted that using artificial intelligence (AI), scammers have become more sophisticated. He put together a computer forensics team in York to target them. “The average amount of money stolen from a senior is $38,000.”
DePasquale said many scammers call seniors from out of state.
“So you’ve got to work with attorney generals in other states. You’ve got to bring lawsuits, sometimes multistate work, sometimes even with the Justice Department. That’s why I think my experience of already running a complicated state agency and having the ability to put together teams across the state and across the country, I think it’s an asset.”
DePasquale added that when he was auditor general, he “routed out over $2 billion being wasted in Harrisburg.”
“My experience is more in line with what the job of the attorney general is,” said DePasquale.
While campaigning, DePasquale said many people talk about their concerns over abortion rights, “even a lot of suburban Republicans.” DePasquale promised never to prosecute a woman for having an abortion or a doctor for performing one.
Sunday said abortion is legal in Pennsylvania up until six months, and after that, there are exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s life. Sunday said he would follow the law.
“My opponent, a professional politician, is throwing out words to scare people, like [debunked] Project 2025…There’s no scenario that exists where I would ever prosecute a woman for having an abortion. Period. He’s trying to scare you because he’s never done the job. He’s never been a prosecutor. He’s never even been in a courtroom to try a case. He’s saying things to scare people. I will not do that,” Sunday said.
Also on the ballot are Robert Cowburn (Libertarian), Richard Weiss (Green), Justin Magill (Constitution) and Eric Settle (Forward).
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