Missouri AG candidates have different ideas on stopping crime, growing consumer protection

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Among many things on the ballot, Missouri voters will decide who they feel will best serve as the state's attorney general in the upcoming election on Nov. 5.

Republican and current Attorney General Andrew Bailey is running for a full term. He was appointed in January 2023 after his predecessor, Eric Schmitt, was voted to the U.S. Senate. He has also served in Iraq and has previous experience as an assistant prosecutor and with the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Bailey's opponent in the race is Democratic candidate Elad Gross. Gross has previously served as an assistant attorney general for Missouri and volunteered as a special public defender. He has experience as a constitutional and civil rights attorney.

Crime

To combat crime, both candidates said they will focus on strengthening relationships and supporting local prosecutors and law enforcement. The difference is Gross plans to focus on violence prevention while Bailey said he will focus on prosecution.

"We're going to continue to build those relationships out and find new and innovative ways to hold wrongdoers accountable and ultimately, the number one priority is finding justice for victims," Bailey said.

Bailey believes the attorney general's role is to advocate for the rule of law, support law enforcement and get justice for victims, and he intends to work with other elected leaders to address crime at the state level. He claimed his office increased criminal prosecutions statewide by 133% in one year.

Meanwhile, Gross has a plan to prevent violence before it happens. He said that plan would include coordinating a statewide effort to provide resources to those that need them and using focused deterrence to target people at risk of getting involved with crime, especially youth.

"I think that we need to focus so much of our attention on preventing that before it happens and make sure that folks have those resources, have the pathway to make right choices so that we aren't burying our kids," Gross said.

Consumer protection

Both Gross and Bailey said a strong Consumer Protection Division is a vital part of the Attorney General's Office and intend to grow the office to help better protect Missourians.

If elected, Bailey said he wants to expand the office's consumer protection operations by increasing staff allocated by the General Assembly.

He touted wins under his current leadership the past two years, including what he said was recovering more than $400 million from scammed Missourians in his second year in office.

"We haven't hit our ceiling yet," Bailey said. "We've created some real efficiencies in that process and have staffed to an appropriate level to be able to fight and win to protect Missourians from scams."

However, Gross said he would like consumer protection to have a larger emphasis in the office than it currently does. He would like the Attorney General to hold big telecom responsible for the large amount of phone scams targeting Missourians and is proposing an app for citizens.

Gross has proposed creating a Missouri Attorney General App that would help educate Missouri citizens on scam safety and make coordination easier for the office. He said the app would allow people to send a potential scam directly to the Attorney General's Office and also provide notifications about scams in people's areas.

"We collect the evidence right there," Gross said. "We streamline the prosecution and we can warn other people about what we're seeing, too."

LINKS: Extended interviews with Republican candidate Andrew Bailey and Democratic candidate Elad Gross

Other priorities

Gross also plans to establish new divisions within the Attorney General's Office, including a civil rights division to prevent government abuses of power and an environmental division to protect natural resources like drinking water.

Currently, the office works in environmental and natural resources law under its Governmental Affairs Division, according to the state's website.

Gross said the funding is already available to create these divisions, but said the office is currently "mismanaged."

"We need someone who's going to manage that office in the right way," Gross said. "Having a Consumer Protection Division that works, having a civil rights division that works, having an office that works brings money to the people in the State of Missouri."

Gross claimed the office is short-staffed and said his spending priority would be to get the office staffed to the right level.

However, Bailey claims that is not true. The current attorney general said his office has reduced both its vacancy rate and turnover numbers during his two years in office.

"This year, we'll be fully staffed and that's a testament to the work we've done in recruitment and through retention, as well," Bailey said.

ABC 17 News reached out to the Attorney General's Office to get current and past staffing numbers, but did not hear back.

Other priorities of Bailey's tenure would be fighting issues like "big tech censorship" and stopping border crossings from Mexico.

Both candidates also plan on holding the federal government accountable.

"Making sure that we're keeping in check rogue federal bureacratic agencies that exceed the scope of their statutory authority and infringe upon the separation of powers doctrine codified in the United States Constitution," Bailey said. "That's been a central role of my office for the past two years and will remain so."

Gross believes the Attorney General's Office should be nonpartisan in hiring the best attorney for the job.

"I don't care who the administration is over in D.C., if they're screwing the people over here in the State of Missouri, we're going to hold them accountable," Gross said.