Gun control, abortion take center stage in race for Washington’s next attorney general

For the first time in 12 years, Washington will have a new attorney general.

The attorney general is the state’s top lawyer and oversees Washington’s head law firm, an agency made up of 800 employees who bring a wide array of issues to court including consumer protection, antitrust suits and civil rights violations.

Democrat Nick Brown and Republican Pete Serrano are battling over who will fill the post of outgoing Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who announced he would not seek re-election this year and run for governor instead.

Brown and Serrano aren’t strangers. Before they announced their respective runs for office, the pair argued against each other in court over state gun laws. Last week, the pair met again twice to argue face-to-face on debate stages, those times about a wide array of legal issues in the state on top of gun safety.

Brown, 47, of Seattle, is the former U.S. attorney for Western Washington. Before that, he served as legal counsel to Gov. Jay Inslee. Serrano, 43, is the mayor of Pasco. He previously worked as a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Energy. He’s also the director of a conservative nonprofit that has challenged certain state gun laws and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

The two opponents don’t agree on much when it comes to state law relevant in this election. Stark contrasts divide their views on abortion access, gun control, police accountability and more.

Here’s a breakdown of where the candidates stand on four key issues:

Guns

For the past four years, gun violence has remained the leading cause of death of children in the United States. A recent study showed that in 2022, Black children and teens in the 1 to 17 age group died from a gunshot at rates 18 times higher than white children in that same age group.

Last April, a Cowlitz County judge struck down a 2022 state law that banned the sale of high-capacity gun magazines. The judge found in his ruling that the two-year-old law violated a person’s right to bear arms for self-defense as outlined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Washington State Constitution.

The Washington Supreme Court is expected to take up the case before the year ends. Until then, the legal ban on high-capacity magazines will remain in effect across the state.

Serrano said Washington residents should have the right to buy high-capacity magazines and assault-style guns (the purchase of which is also currently banned under state law) in the wake of rising crime. Serrano and his nonprofit, the Silent Majority Foundation, have legally represented the groups challenging the state’s gun law.

“When I look at the large-capacity magazines and the assault weapons bans, we have a lot of the impacted communities who are coming to the gun shops looking for safety and protection,” Serrano said. “We cannot ban protection in Washington. That does not work.”

On the campaign trail, Brown has repeatedly said gun violence is one of the most pressing problems in Washington.

“As a state, we need to continue to advance gun safety measures here in Washington,” Brown said in the Sept. 19 debate. “Because that has results and saves lives.”

Police accountability

A bill introduced in the state Legislature earlier this year would have created a unit within the attorney general’s office to pursue charges against police officers suspected of using deadly force. The bill didn’t end up passing, but lawmakers might try to make it a law again early next year.

In the Sept. 19 debate, moderator Libby Denkmann asked the candidates if they’d support legislation to set up such a unit under their direction of the attorney general’s office.

Brown said he’d support creating a police accountability unit.

“The way you make the community safer is when you have more confidence, and faith, and trust in law enforcement,” Brown said. “I think the idea of having an independent office of review within the attorney general’s office would help achieve that goal.”

Serrano said he wasn’t sure if the attorney general’s office was the right place to house a police accountability unit, adding that the attorney general’s office employs lawyers, not “secondhand cops.”

“Much of what the attorney general’s work is civil work,” Serrano said. “Not primarily criminal. I don’t know that the expertise resides there. I do know this: Down in Eastern Washington where I reside, in talking to local law enforcement, they have special investigative units.”

Abortion

For decades, Washington has had the right to abortion access enshrined in state law. Both Brown and Serrano have said they would go up to bat to defend that law if it were challenged in a higher court. But the candidates differ on how the state should treat patients who travel from out of state to seek abortion access in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

The Washington Shield Law, enacted in 2023, protects people in Washington from civil and criminal actions in other states that restrict or criminalize reproductive and gender-affirming care. It means that the state will not comply with criminal proceedings brought up by states with bans on abortion and/or certain gender-affirming care – such as Idaho and Texas – for people who travel to Washington for those medical procedures.

Brown said he would defend the shield law if elected as attorney general, noting that the state has seen a 20% uptick in abortion requests in the last two years.

“We need to protect people within our state,” Brown said in reference to the shield law. “Whether they are lifelong residents here, whether they’re tourists coming here, or they’re coming here for health care services that they’re obligated to get – that they have a right to have. Just because the state of Idaho has changed their abortion laws, I’m not going to stop protecting women who come here for the health care that they need and deserve.”

Serrano said he struggles with the shield law and would not defend it if elected as attorney general.

“We have 50 states that have the ability to legislate as they see fit,” Serrano said. “The notion that we would try to undo legislation from another state – I think that puts us in a really strong predicament. And why wouldn’t those states seek to undo all of our laws? I cannot stand for that.”

Hospital mergers

Today, eight health care systems own more than 90% of the hospital beds in Washington. And one health care system owns 100% of the hospital beds in six counties.

For the past few years, state lawmakers have considered a bill that would grant the attorney general’s office power to block hospital mergers or set guardrails around them. The bill has yet to make it to the governor’s desk. But it’s likely the issue will come up again when the state Legislature convenes next year.

Brown and Serrano differ on what role the attorney general’s office should play in merger law and whether they’d support it.

Serrano said the idea of blocking hospital mergers makes him worried for smaller communities that he says may need mergers to keep the lights on in their doctor’s offices moving forward.

“Why should that reside in the attorney general’s office to oversee that transaction?” Serrano said. “I’m very concerned that this will have significant detrimental impacts to our rural areas.

Brown said he would support the bill, arguing that hospital mergers have had negative impacts on patients, such as consolidation based on religious health care groups that are systematically denying abortions and gender-affirming care.

“We’re also seeing health care deserts get created,” Brown said, “where consolidation happens, and you live in a small community, and you can no longer access the health care that you need.”

General election ballots will be mailed in mid-October for the Nov. 5 election.