Leading Candidate in WA Governor’s Race Reflects on Attorney General’s Office

SEATAC, WA - JUNE 09: Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson speaks at a press conference outside the Federal Detention Center holding migrant women as Washington state Governor Jay Inslee (L) and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (R) listen on June 9, 2018 in SeaTac, Washington. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal visited the Federal Detention Center-SeaTac to meet with more than 100 asylum seekers, many of whom are women. (Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)

SEATTLE, Wa. –Bob Ferguson says he faced an uphill battle at first.

“When I became Attorney General, the AG’s office was a sleepy law firm in Washington state for the most part, we did not have a civil rights division that advocated for farm workers and other people. No one did that work in our office. If you called our office with a civil rights complaint, we referred you somewhere else. No one single solitary person used the AG’s independent power to impartial environmental laws, civil or criminal. Our consumer protection division had one consumer protection trial in 16 years. We did not adequately center the people, in our work. That’s not a criticism of the workers there. We just didn’t do the work at all.”

But now he says it’s a different story.

“After 12 years, I think we’ve completely transformed that office and how the people think about it. To better center the people.”

Now he says he wants to take the same approach to the governor’s job, remove bureaucracy and center on serving people. Voters gave him 48% of the primary vote.

KXL’s Annette Newell asked him: “Congratulations Mr. Ferguson. That was quite a showing there was 28 people on the ballot. That was a huge field of competitors it was a lot of people on the ballot. How do you feel about your victory?”

Ferguson responded, “I kept meaning to go back to look to past years, whether there were that many in the past. So I haven’t gone back to take a look. It feels like a lengthy ballot. So I agree with you on that. In terms of how we feel, we’re mindful that, it’s just the primary. But it’s fair to say, just being candid, I did not have on my bingo card the result that we saw. I sensed that we had some momentum going. I sensed our t.v. ads were communicating. You’re out there. You’re talking to people. You hope you’re getting a sense of what’s resonating. And I did feel that we were making progress in those last 6 to 8 weeks leading up to the primary. We got some key endorsements. The state firefighters endorsed us. The Seattle Times endorsed us.”

Ferguson will face second place finisher Dave Reichert, a Republican former U. S. Representative and King County Sheriff in November.

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