For Ohio attorney general: Dave Yost is the better choice

As one of five races at the top of the ballot in Ohio this fall, the choice for attorney general pits a career prosecutor against a seasoned officeholder. For the edge he brings in experience politically and professionally, we endorse the Republican candidate, Dave Yost.

To be sure, prosecution of certain crimes against the state and consumers is one responsibility of attorney general, and the Democratic candidate, Steve Dettelbach, has a wealth of experience in that arena. He served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio in the Obama administration and previously as a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice.

But the attorney general must navigate a broader landscape as the chief legal counsel for state agencies and as the state’s debt collector. There are times the AG is compelled to climb into a bully pulpit and urge others to act, and Yost’s experience as state auditor, his current elective office, will add to his credibility in that responsibility.

Yost, 61, is a central Ohio native who followed a journalism degree from Ohio State University with a stint as a reporter at the former Columbus Citizen-Journal. Night classes at Capital University Law School took him from newspapers to politics, with staff positions for former Columbus Mayor Dana “Buck” Rinehart and Gov. George Voinovich. His first public office was on Delaware City Council in 1995, followed by terms as Delaware County auditor (1999-2003) and prosecuting attorney (2003-11) before assuming his current position in 2011.

Dettelbach, 52, has practiced law for 27 years, spending most of that at the federal level as law clerk to a Washington, D.C., district court judge, as a trial lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice civil-rights division, as an assistant and deputy chief U.S. attorney in Maryland (1997-2001) and as counsel to the chair of the U.S. Senate judiciary committee (’01-’03) before returning to his hometown of Cleveland as an assistant U.S. attorney (’03-’06). He practiced law with BakerHostetler in 2006 before President Barack Obama appointed him as U.S. attorney, and he returned to the firm in 2016.

Yost has absorbed lessons in the various political offices he has served that make him the better bet for attorney general. He