Democrat

Candidate name: Douglas F. Gansler

Place of residence: Chevy Chase

Date of birth: Oct. 30, 1962

Place of birth: Summit, N.J.

Current occupation: Montgomery County state’s attorney; adjunct professor of law, American University School of Law

Education: B.A., Yale University; J.D., University of Virginia School of Law.

Community associations, involvement: Mentored at-risk area youth, served on the Montgomery County Commission on Aging, and co-chaired the NAACP Criminal Justice Committee; Board of Directors, the JCC of Greater Washington, the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes, Most Valuable Kids, Teen Court and the Washington Regional Alcohol Program; coach of youth lacrosse, baseball and basketball; Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Professional associations: Maryland State Bar (1989); District of Columbia Bar (1990); Maryland State’s Attorneys’ Association.

Family: Married to Laura Leedy Gansler; two sons, Sam, 12, and Will, 9.

Campaign office address and telephone: 1400 Spring St., Silver Spring, MD 20910, 301-588-1588.

Web site: www.gansler2006.com.

Link to state Board of Elections campaign finance database

My number one priority if elected to be the next Attorney General is to actively help our communities succeed by protecting Marylanders from those who would do us wrong, including defending consumers from corporate fraud, safeguarding the environment by prosecuting polluters, fighting gang activity in our schools and communities, and aggressively pursing perpetrators of elder abuse.

My second priority will be to seek innovative solutions to the new legal challenges that we face, including the establishment of an Internet Safety Unit to target internet crime and identity theft, the promotion and enforcement of a Maryland RICO statute to better combat gang-related crimes, and a renewed focus on environmental laws that yield real results.

And my third priority will be to better the Attorney General’s office for the long-term by continuing my current practice of recruiting attorneys from Maryland’s top law firms and by actively promoting and hiring qualified women and minorities. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office needs to be a public interest law firm of the highest quality and integrity with attorneys able to address the most pressing and challenging issues facing our state.

How would you rate the performance of the current attorney general: excellent, good, fair or poor? Why?

As Maryland’s Attorney General for two decades, J. Joseph Curran built an excellent legacy of integrity, compassion, and legal rigor that are hallmarks of the Attorney General’s office. He was an outstanding consumer advocate and a leader in protecting seniors, including establishing the Health Policy Unit within the office that is a national model for advising on end-of-life issues.

What administrative skills will you bring to a job that manages more than 400 lawyers in the Attorney General’s Office?

I currently manage an office of more than 200 staff, including 65 attorneys, and a budget of more than $10 million. During the eight years that I have managed the State’s Attorney’s office for Maryland’s largest jurisdiction, I have built a team that has received national recognition for innovation and effectiveness, including the establishment of the county’s first domestic violence docket, aggressive anti-gang and anti-drug efforts, and the first full-scale implementation of community-based prosecution in the U.S., where we work in partnership with local communities to find real solutions to the problems that neighborhoods face.

As attorney general, how would you protect consumers?

I will use the powers of the Attorney General’s office to stop price gouging and discriminatory practices such as redlining and predatory lending. I will work to ensure that all consumers, particularly in the field of healthcare, are treated fairly and honestly. Health insurance companies, utility companies and the like, who use their size and power to intimidate the individual consumer will be brought to justice by the aggressive enforcement of Maryland’s consumer protection laws.

In addition, I will work with those companies which do exhibit good consumer-related practices to expand these ‘‘best practices” across industries like healthcare, consumer lending and insurance, where the impact will be most felt by Marylanders and their families.

What steps are needed to toughen Maryland’s identity theft laws?

Maryland should enact a security freeze law to allow consumers to prevent identity theft by freezing their credit reports from access for new credit. The state should also pass a security breach notification law to require companies and other entities that have lost data to notify affected consumers.

The Attorney General’s office must be aggressive and innovative in dealing with new and evolving criminal behaviors, such as identity theft, and I will apply the same standards for professionalism and effectiveness that we established in the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s office to those efforts.

Do you think the office needs to do more to investigate claims of gasoline price gouging in Maryland?

Yes; the state also needs to pass legislation to prohibit price gouging. Price gouging in any circumstances is reprehensible, and under my watch, the Attorney General’s office will move swiftly and forcefully to stop those who would engage in this practice.

Are Maryland’s laws tough enough on sexual predators? If not, how would you toughen them?

No. Those who would prey on the defenseless, especially children, should be quickly removed from society and everything possible that can be done to permanently protect others from further predatory criminal behavior should be strictly enforced.

I would toughen Maryland?s laws in four ways. First, I would support the establishment of a mandatory minimum penalty for sexual crimes against minors and for repeat offenders. Line-prosecutors need this tool to make sure judges appropriately sentence the worst offenders to long prison terms. Second, the sentencing guidelines for sexual offenses and child pornography offenses need to be increased. Judges use these guidelines to sentence offenders and the guidelines need to accurately reflect our community’s concern with this type of criminal behavior. Third, as a State and former Federal prosecutor I am well aware that recidivism by sexual offenders is a major problem, so I would support legislation that would extend our current maximum probationary period of five years to allow judges to place certain sexual offenders on probation for life. Finally, we need to improve the sexual offenders registry by enlarging the pool of offenses that requires registration, increasing the penalties for failing to register and by making the registry easier to use and access for parents and other concerned members of our community.

Do you support the death penalty? Why or why not?

I believe in the death penalty for only the most heinous crimes. My approach to death-eligible cases is based upon three basic principles: (1) The guilt of the defendant must be absolutely certain; (2) the crime must be particularly heinous and egregious; and (3) that there can be no doubt that the death penalty is warranted and that both the case and penalty will be tried and applied in an absolutely fair manner, with no question of racial or other bias somehow skewing or interfering with the process of justice.

In every death-eligible case, our office provides both the defense counsel and the victim’s family extensive opportunities to play a role in the determination, including an off-the-record presentation regarding mitigating factors and personal meetings to advocate for the victim. All of these factors are balanced against the community’s best interests in getting criminals off the street, that charging and sentencing are certain, and that we do all we can to ensure that horrific crimes are not repeated.