Montgomery County State?s Attorney Doug Gansler on Monday became the first Democrat to officially enter the race to replace retiring Attorney General Joseph Curran.
“The attorney general is the people?s lawyer and it is for the people that I will fight,” Gansler said in making his announcement at the federal courthouse in Baltimore, as he had done earlier in the day at the Rockville court building.
Gansler is the second aggressive prosecutor to join the race. Republican Scott Rolle, the Frederick County state?s attorney, announced last Tuesday.
“I do think there?s a dire need for a prosecutor to take over the Attorney General?s Office,” Gansler said. Much of the work of the Maryland attorney general is providing legal counsel to state agencies, he said, but “even on the civil side, it has a prosecutorial flavor.”
Gansler currently is prosecuting convicted sniper John Muhammad for six killings in Montgomery County. He emphasized his approach of “community prosecution” and his success in prosecuting drug dealers, gang leaders and those who use the Internet to commit crimes.
He said he plans to prosecute polluters “and finally protect the Chesapeake Bay,” and he wants to win passage of conspiracy statutes to go after gangs.
Gansler?s campaign was endorsed by a number of Baltimore supporters. City Council Member Keifer Mitchell said, “I think he?s got an excellent track record in Montgomery County” and “will bring a new vitality” to the Attorney General?s Office. Mitchell said Gansler would bring the office the “same integrity as Joe Curran did.”
Democratic Montgomery County Council Member Tom Perez, a professor at the University of Maryland Law School in Baltimore, has been informally running for attorney general for eight months.
