Attorney General

After a hard-fought battle for the attorney general position four years ago, incumbent Democrat Bob Ferguson didn’t even draw a Republican opponent this year. Instead, he’s facing Libertarian Joshua Trumbull, an Arlington attorney at a small firm. Trumbull is the first member of the Libertarian Party to be on the general election ballot for a statewide office since Washington went to the top-two primary system in 2008.

Ferguson has been in the news regularly, for major consumer protection cases against Comcast and Johnson & Johnson, a complaint against the U.S. Department of Energy challenging worker safety at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and a major campaign finance case against opponents of the 2013 genetically modified foods initiative. He recently announced that he would push for legislation next year to ban the sale of semi-automatic military style rifles and large magazines.

Trumbull contends focusing on gun violence is the wrong way to go. Instead the state should focus on all violence and look at things that he said contribute to it, such as violent movies, television shows and video games. But he conceded that efforts to restrict those would become tied up in freedom of speech disputes, just as an assault weapon ban would generate a Second Amendment debate.

Asked how he would make the jump from a small practice to running what’s essentially the biggest law firm in the state, with more than 1,000 employees, 13 offices and 25 divisions, Trumbull said he believes good people are already in place. “I would set the direction and tone and rely on smart people to implement it.”