Sojourner House holds 2026's first Rhode Island Attorney General public forum

“One of the most critical functions of the Attorney General’s office is to assist victims of crime in seeking justice and support,” said Vanessa Volz, President and CEO of Sojourner House.

Sojourner House, an agency that advocates for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, has a keen interest in who is elected as Rhode Island’s next Attorney General. They held their Attorney General Policy Forum on Thursday morning. The focus of the forum was to see how the next Attorney General plans to use the power of the office to prevent violence, expand access to justice, and protect vulnerable communities across the state. The event provided community members an opportunity to hear from candidates concerned about domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking vying to serve as the state’s top law enforcement officer and chief legal advisor. Boston Globe reporter Edward Fitzpatrick moderated the forum.

“One of the most critical functions of the Attorney General’s office is to assist victims of crime in seeking justice and support,” said Vanessa Volz, President and CEO of Sojourner House. “With that responsibility in mind, Sojourner House wanted to create a space where Rhode Islanders could hear directly from the candidates and make an informed decision at the ballot box.”

Participants included Democrats Kim Ahern, Keith Hoffmann, and Jason Knight, and Republican Alan Gordon.

Here’s the video and transcript. The transcript was edited for clarity:

Opening statements

Kim Ahern: At its core, the Attorney General’s job is simple: to protect Rhode Islanders; to protect our families and us from violent crime and criminals, protect our rights when they come under attack, and to stand up for working people [against] powerful interests [that] attack our health, safety, or economic security.

That mission has guided my entire career. For just shy of two decades, I’ve served as a prosecutor for the past three Attorneys General, as a legal and policy advisor to governors, and as the head of a state agency.

I have personally prosecuted over a thousand violent crimes, fought for survivors, advanced criminal justice reform, helped lead the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, worked to address our housing crisis, and built a new regulatory agency grounded in safety, transparency, and equity.

Without a doubt, those experiences have prepared me to be your next Attorney General. But the reason I’m running is personal. My wife, Jenna, and I live right here in Providence. We’re raising three daughters, and like any parent or caregiver, I think about the world they’re growing up in every day, a world where fundamental rights are under attack, where working families are struggling to make ends meet.

When Donald Trump or anyone else threatens the rights of Rhode Islanders, the Attorney General needs to be the first person to stand in their way and fight back. I’ve done that before, and I am ready to do that again. For me, this race comes down to who is best prepared with proven experiences to lead on day one.

Alan Gordon: They say I can’t win.

I’ve spent my life winning battles said to be unwinnable. We’re going to fight hard with novel good ideas - ideas you can’t un-hear - ideas that will carry forth no matter who wins this election.

I hope my competitors also bring such ideas today, because with abuse and human trafficking, the mission of our host, breaking the cycle, once and for all, is more important than who wins this election. We need outside-the-box solutions to break that cycle. Nothing’s more important. Domestic abuse casualty rates are so high that if it were a virus causing it instead of us men, a state of emergency would have been declared.

Today, my debate answers will center on a radical new program. I call it Man-Up. It will break the cycle. It will finally give Sojourner House enough shelter housing and work opportunities for codependent households that have been split apart by court order for abuse survivors, and even for the abusers who need oversight help in learning to be good, and not just sudden joblessness and homelessness. Under my leadership, I’m going to issue a formal advisory to the governor to declare a state of emergency and use a simple, elegant mechanism to raise all the shelter funds Sojourner House needs.

The measure would add a voluntary, state Man-Up payroll withholding of just $2 a week for a working man. A man can show that pay stub to anyone he wants to impress.

That withholding rate suffices for all of Sojourner House’s event shelter needs. Businesses can benefit from the enhanced labor pool. The courts get a peace dividend from the lower recidivism rates. And the best part about it might be that there’s no federal funding, so Trump can’t touch it.

Keith Hoffmann: The work that Sojourner House does to serve survivors is critical and core to the mission of the Attorney General’s office. As we begin today, I want us all to remember Sojourner House’s mission. It was named Sojourner House, in part, to honor Sojourner Truth and the importance of racial equality and racial equity during this moment in time, where Rhode Islanders are being harmed by a federal government that is out of control and by systems that have not served them adequately, some of which I think we’ll be discussing today.

I’m running for Attorney General to fight for the people of our state, for those who are victims of crime, for those the Attorney General’s office can best serve and protect.

A little bit about me: I grew up in Rhode Island. I moved away for college and law school. I worked in the AG’s office during college. I worked in the AG’s office during law school. For a few years after law school, I practiced law at a legal aid organization and led a team of lawyers. We set up what we believe were the first legal clinics for female and LGBTQ+ veterans, many of whom had been survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

When I moved back home, I started to work in the Attorney General’s office under the last Attorney General and worked my way up the ranks under Attorney General Neronha, became a unit chief, helped to build our public protection bureau that does all of our consumer protection, civil rights, healthcare, and environmental protection work, worked in the criminal division as well, worked on and prosecuted some criminal cases, and then moved up to the executive team as Peter Neronha’s Chief of Policy and Senior Counsel, where I was in charge of planning and then leading the fight against the Trump Administration’s unprecedented, reckless, and chaotic overreach alongside AG Neronha.

This election for attorney general is critical. It’s critical to Sojourner House’s mission. It’s critical to the people of this state who need someone in their corner to fight for them. I believe that I have the experience, energy, and ability to fight for us all and to make our state safer, stronger, and fairer for everyone. That’s why I’m running.

Jason Knight: I’m so appreciative of the work that Sojourner House does to advocate for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and human trafficking, and the work you do to prevent those things in our world. It’s very important.

We live in dangerous and uncertain times with Trump, the MAGA movement, and what’s happening in our country. Rhode Island needs a progressive champion, with deep experience and a knack for getting things done, producing results for Rhode Islanders to tackle the AG’s office and be that line of defense between all of us and our families and the Trump Administration.

I began my career in public service right after high school. I’m a Navy veteran. I was on active duty in submarines for just about eight years. I have 20 years of experience in Rhode Island courts, both as a prosecutor and a defender. And of course, I’ve been a legislator in the General Assembly representing Barrington and Warren for the last 10 years.

Listen, I have taken my values and put them into action to create real results. When the federal government sought to take away the reproductive rights of women across the country, in the General Assembly, my colleagues and I got together and made our democratic leadership put Roe v. Wade into state law so that Rhode Island women and their bodily autonomy were protected.

In a time when we are suffering under a gun violence epidemic in the country, my colleagues in the General Assembly and I worked hard to pass laws, every year I’ve been there, to improve gun safety. I passed the assault weapons ban, which just went into effect a few weeks ago. In my very first year, I was a big supporter of the bill that banned domestic abusers from having firearms.

And of course, when ICE came to Warren to execute their profoundly racist mission of stopping people on the street who aren’t white and saying, “Show us your papers,” we took action. Just a few weeks ago, my colleagues in the General Assembly and I put some guardrails around ICE here in Rhode Island.

That’s what we need. We need more action. We need less talk.

First question: Approximately one in two Rhode Island women and two in five men have experienced domestic violence in their lifetime. Domestic violence, sexual violence, human trafficking, and homelessness are deeply interconnected public health, safety, and economic crises driven both by individual behavior and structural factors like high housing costs, concentrated poverty, and underfunded prevention services. As Attorney General, what specific strategy would you pursue, using your prosecutorial authority, policy role, and convening power, to address these interconnected issues and reduce intimate partner violence over your four-year term? And how would you measure success?

Jason Knight: When I think about this, it gets to the core of the Attorney General’s role: public protection and public safety. You’re absolutely right, Ed, that domestic violence is an epidemic in our country, it is pernicious, and it’s really hard to get at. What I would do is leverage the experience I’ve had in the courts and the bully pulpit of the Attorney General’s office to engage in a multi-front attack on this issue by making sure that we meet victims where they’re at in terms of accommodating them and preparing them for the court process, that we identify and are very firm with the offenders, and, of course, work hard to make the court system pick up its feet and resolve these cases faster.

I would advocate at the General Assembly for more funding for both Sojourner House’s missions and for more lawyers in the AG’s office, so that we can move these cases faster and ensure the victims receive the justice they deserve. The measure of success is that we drive down the rates of domestic violence and recidivism.

Keith Hoffmann: Ultimately, the goal should be that no person is assaulted or abused by a partner. That is a big goal, and it’s not going to be achieved within the four-year term of an attorney general. But there are so many ways we can begin to address this problem more aggressively: First, when somebody breaks the law, and we prosecute them, we need to ensure we have sufficient prosecutors in our special victims unit and victim advocates to serve those victims.

Under Attorney General Nerona, we have expanded. First, we created a special victims unit that provides trauma-informed care and trauma-informed prosecution for victims. We increased the resources of that unit, over the objections of some, to ensure that caseloads are low enough to serve those victims. We need to continue. If domestic violence, sexual assault, and child molestation continue to rise, we’re going to need to continue to provide additional resources to that work.

Then, in terms of prevention, we need to make sure that victims have access to safe housing, so that when they are being victimized, there’s housing available to them to escape their abuser. That means people cannot discriminate against them based on familial status or their status as a victim. There is a great deal of civil rights work that needs to be done [in furtherance of] that goal. We have to look at this in a multifaceted, holistic way and use every tool of the Attorney General’s office, ensuring people have access to mental health care and safe, affordable housing, and prosecuting cases aggressively while providing support to victims.

Alan Gordon: Much of what Mr. Hoffmann said is right, that housing’s got to be provided. We’ve got to break the cycle, and somebody suffering abuse needs to know that there’s someplace safe to go. My Man-Up voluntary payroll withholding will meet that funding need. We must do, or we can’t break that loop. And we’re going to break that loop.

Something Mr. Hoffmann was wrong about was his claim that an Attorney General can’t do it in four years. Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Be realistic. Expect a miracle. We’re gonna break this cycle. There’s going to be housing and shelter available for anybody who needs it, even the perps, so we can train them to be right. Be realistic. Expect a miracle. We’re gonna get it done.

Kim Ahern: For most of my career at the AG’s office, I was in this unit. I prosecuted cases involving domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and child molestation. I’ve looked those victims in the eye, and I’ve seen their struggles. Their struggles are exactly what I was just asked about. It’s about breaking the cycle of violence. They won’t be able to leave their abuser until we have additional supports in place, most of which is housing relief. We need to do everything we can, and that’s the type of Attorney General I will be.

That’s the type of advocate I was at the State House, advocating for additional funding for entities like Sojourner House and the Coalition Against Domestic Violence. But I want you all to know, when I left that unit in 2019, my average caseload, which I personally handled, was 150 cases. Right now, the average caseload per prosecutor in that unit is between 200 and 220.

Think about that for a minute. We need to look inward first. The office needs more resources and more prosecutors to treat these cases with the seriousness they deserve.

Second question: Accessibility is frequently a challenge for survivors of abuse navigating the legal system, due to limited remote hearing options, outdated online court resources, forms that are difficult to find, a lack of translated materials, missing information about fee waivers, and inadequate interpreter access in some courts. What changes would you support to improve access to justice in Rhode Island’s courts, including remote hearing options across all courts? How would you work to modernize court websites and online portals, and what’s your plan to improve language access, interpreter availability, and accessibility for people navigating the court system without legal representation?

Kim Ahern: First of all, the COVID-19 pandemic helped us in a few ways. I worked with Governor Raimondo to increase funding for the judiciary so they could conduct remote hearings, so I know that they have the tools in place; it’s just a matter of execution. If I’m the Attorney General, there’s going to be regular communication between each Chief Justice of each court and me, to ensure that victims of crime and immigrants who don’t feel safe going to court right now have access to remote hearings.

The Attorney General’s Office has several individuals, specifically in the Victim Services Unit, who speak many languages, particularly Spanish. If the courts aren’t doing what they need to do, then I would do what I did when I was a prosecutor: I would walk that victim downstairs to the second floor of the courthouse, where the Attorney General has an office, and I would introduce them to the victim advocates, many of whom speak Spanish, so that language is not a barrier for seeking justice.

That’s the type of Attorney General I plan to be.

Alan Gordon: I like that. After a crime, everybody involved can feel victimized by the court process. It is hard. Maybe for lawyers who do it day in and day out, it seems easy - maybe. But for somebody new to that, it can be a nightmare. Without having broken the cycle yet, morale and resources are too low at the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, and some of that stuff started to slip. Together, we can fix that in two ways. With the Man-Up payroll withholding I talked about, we’re going to break the cycle and free up a lot of court resources. It will free up attorneys general to assist people navigating [the system]. And of course, in the modern era, it’s time to use AI to help people navigate these things.

Keith Hoffmann: This issue is critical. There can be no one in this state who’s effectively denied access to the courts because there’s no hearing process or forms in their language that are easy to access. I want to start by saying that this issue of poor language access in the State of Rhode Island is not limited to the courts. Many parts of the state government are not adequately translating their materials for people in different communities. Of course, Spanish speakers, but increasingly people in Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Portuguese communities, et cetera. We need to ensure we have systems in place so that people who speak other languages in our state can access the services they need.

We have to support remote hearings for our immigrant communities and also for those who don’t have easy transportation to the courts. It’s a critical issue that requires close cooperation with the courts to address.

Jason Knight: This is a hugely important issue. When I was a young prosecutor, I was in the courthouse one day when a young woman came in trying to get a restraining order, and she didn’t know where to go. She was clearly distraught. I walked up to her and said, “Can I help you?” She explained her problem, I managed to get her to the clerk’s office, and we found the courtroom.

That was a powerful experience about how our court system can seem like a foreign land. The language is weird, even for English speakers. The procedures are weird and unknown. It is up to us to ensure that the AG’s office and, of course, the court system, make it as user-friendly as possible. The court has a long way to go. As the largest sort of law firm in the state, as your Attorney General, I’ll be right there up with the justices who run the court system to ensure that they understand the scope of the problem and advocate to open it up and improve the information availability and access to virtual hearings.

And one last thing: If the court won’t put the information on their website, the AG’s office absolutely will. There’s no reason why the AG’s office can’t be a one-stop shop for all the information victims need as they navigate the court process.

Third question: On Monday of this week, an ICE agent shot and killed a man in Biddeford, Maine, making national news, but even before then, someone who had planned to attend today’s forum had submitted this question for the candidates. Can you provide concrete examples of steps you would take in your first year as Attorney General to support and protect Rhode Island’s immigrant communities? Specifically, what concrete steps would you take to enforce the new Rhode Island Protect Our Courts Act (H7360 / S2045), which prohibits civil arrests at courthouses without a valid judicial warrant? How would you use the office to hold ICE agents accountable for violations of criminal law and constitutional rights?

Jason Knight: Nothing shows off how despicable the Trump Administration and the MAGA movement are more than their approach to immigration, which, I don’t care what they say, is rooted in a profoundly racist effort to remove anyone who’s not white from the country. This is what you get from people who talk about the death of European culture, who talk about how the “Jew will not replace us,” which goes directly to my family - and Keith’s as well. It’s terrible.

As your Attorney General, there are concrete steps that we can take.

As a legislature, we just passed three bills to put guardrails around ICE, including one to keep them out of the courthouse. We will do everything in our power to help enforce the bill and ensure that ICE respects it, including taking them to court if necessary.

If an ICE agent violates state law within our borders, we will treat them no differently than anyone else who has violated the state law. We will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. This is a despicable and awful current. It’s a cancer in our American society, and under my leadership, the AG’s office will take no part in it. We will do everything we can to fight against what they’re calling “immigration enforcement” and what I call something else.

Keith Hoffmann: Under the Trump Administration, ICE has become a killing machine. It’s Donald Trump’s personal immigration army. Mr. Guerrero’s death is a tragedy. So were Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and ICE has killed at least seven others since the beginning of the Trump Administration, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. Some are U.S. citizens. Some are undocumented. Some are green card holders. None of them should have been killed.

We absolutely must hold anybody accountable when they break the law, including ICE agents. Using criminal and civil tools, we have to ensure that spaces are protected from ICE agents and that guidance is provided to entities that we do not control, such as the courts and schools, as we have done under AG Neronha. I drafted that guidance under his direction.

It’s a critical issue. It impacts every provider, and we have to stand up for our immigrant communities during a time when they are under tremendous threat.

Alan Gordon: As Attorney General, I’m going to do a couple of new, outside-the-box things. You’ll get used to that from me. I’m a Republican. I’m pro-life. One thing I’m going to do that nobody’s suggested is, when there’s an unborn visitor to Rhode Island from another jurisdiction, I’m going to work to expand the legal personhood of that unborn child such that “If they’re too mature to abort, they’re too mature to deport.” I’m going to fight against their removal if an unborn child is so-called “quick.”

Another thing that I’m going to do is, under this Man-Up payroll withholding program for emergency housing, we can remove federal input from how we house people in need here, so Trump and crew can’t threaten our funding, and we can take care of our own here in Rhode Island.

And finally, as to enforcement of the act limiting ICE’s behavior in our courthouses, if they conduct an unlawful arrest in our state, it’s going to be prosecuted.

Kim Ahern: I am horrified by what we have all seen in these videos. I’m horrified as a mom of young kids. I’m horrified as a parent. I’m horrified as an attorney at what we’re seeing play out across this country at the hands of ICE agents. The steps that I will take, and Jason and his colleagues should get credit for passing it, are that in my first week as the Attorney General, I will meet with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Superintendent of the State Police, and the head of the Division of Sheriffs who actually decide who goes in and out of the courts every day, because to enforce this, we need to ensure that everybody is properly trained.

That’s what I did at the Attorney General’s office. I trained hundreds of police officers in criminal investigations and procedures, and I can tell you that these ICE agents are acting outside the bounds of any law enforcement officer that I have worked with in the State of Rhode Island. This isn’t just a tragedy, it’s a travesty of justice.

Fourth question: During his tenure, Attorney General Peter Neronha has been an outspoken advocate for gun legislation, including the bill passed in 2025 and sponsored by Representative Knight that bans the sale, purchase, and manufacture of certain assault-style weapons, but not their possession. Unfortunately, Representative Solomon is not here today. Still, he recently told WJAR Channel 10 that he voted against that law because it “is probably one of the most restrictive in the entire nation.” He said that states should focus on violent offenders as opposed to lawful gun owners.

What’s your response to Representative Solomon, and what other gun legislation would you advocate for as Attorney General, if any?

Kim Ahern: First of all, it’s hard to respond to someone who wants to be your Attorney General, and is not here to talk about domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, arguably the most important job of the Rhode Island Attorney General - keeping us safe, as I said at the beginning. So part of me wants not to respond to this, but I will say I want to give credit to Representative Knight for the years of advocacy he and his colleagues put in at the State House to get weapons of war off the streets of Providence and the rest of the state.

I’ve actually prosecuted firearms cases. I’ve handled these cases, and they often do intersect with domestic violence as a lethal tool to kill a loved one. If I’m the Attorney General, I’m going to do everything I can to continue to reduce violence, work with legislators, and ensure we’re implementing the law that was just passed.

We’re going to focus on keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and individuals with documented mental health histories, and ensure that we do everything we can to stop the cycle of violence.

Alan Gordon: The Attorney General of Rhode Island has to enforce the statutes of Rhode Island and the Constitution, whether or not we feel one way or the other about a law. I don’t think that these firearm restrictions are keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Still, when I look at the numbers, especially in terms of domestic abuse and human trafficking, I think about the 2,000 women in Rhode Island a year or more who were pressured into the tragic choice to abort a child, compared to the amount of gun violence. I think to myself, that’s actually more serious, right now. Women are being pressured into dangerous surgery or drug-taking.

We, men, are the problem. We can’t promote women’s rights, surgery, and drugs for women, so that we can have consequence-free mating anymore. When I’m Attorney General, any man who pressures a pregnant woman one way or the other is going to come under my lens of criminal scrutiny, whether it’s disorderly conduct, assault, or poisoning; a man knows what he’s doing during the reproductive act. Abortion causes harm, and he knows the risk he’s putting her in. This could be viewed as criminal unless he wants a baby, and he knows she does too. It’s the men who should be prosecuted.

Keith Hoffmann: Gun safety is something that Rhode Islanders shouldn’t have to think about as much as they do. As a parent, I think about this issue every single day, and I know other parents do, too, because it has impacted us directly at Brown University, Pawtucket, and in many other tragedies over the years. I give a great deal of credit to Representative Knight and other members of the legislature for the consensus they’ve reached in passing these critical gun safety reforms. We have to defend them.

I’ve defended the ban on large-capacity magazines in court. I’ve defended the red flag law in court. I’ve successfully defended restrictions on concealed carry in state parks in court. These laws are constitutional, and we must strive to seek consensus on further gun safety reforms, in terms of providing mental health care and making the red flag law work so that firearms are taken out of the hands of those who are a threat to themselves, the people they abuse, or others.

Jason Knight: You’re right, Kim, that it’s hard to respond to someone who’s not here. But I heard that quote from Representative Solomon, and I couldn’t disagree more. Without getting too into the weeds, Rhode Island’s assault weapon ban is not, in fact, the most restrictive in the nation. But you don’t have to look at what people say. You have to look at what they do, because when they show you who they are, believe them.

This was a vote to protect Rhode Islanders by limiting access to high-power assault-style rifles, and I proudly sponsored the legislation, pushed for it, voted, and got it through. Let’s face it, it’s an ongoing battle: We’ve had the terrible shooting at Brown. We’ve had the awful shooting in Pawtucket. This is an epidemic, and it touches Rhode Island every day.

So we can’t let up on the gas. In terms of what I would advocate for as your Attorney General to improve gun safety, in the next General Assembly session, I would get behind Representative Jennifer Boylan’s bill to reform our blue card process to make it truly educational, so that when someone holds a license to possess a firearm, they’re doing so with a ton of training. And also the legislation to hold sellers and manufacturers liable for negligent sales, which is Chair Susan Donovan’s bill.

Fifth question: During his tenure, Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office has filed or joined in filing 63 lawsuits challenging Trump Administration policies. Most recently, he joined a coalition of nearly two dozen states suing the Trump Administration over a new federal housing policy that he said will lead to tens of thousands of people losing their homes. Would you continue Attorney General Nirona’s legal battles against the Trump Administration’s policies, or would you prioritize other areas? And what is one thing you would do differently than Attorney General Neronha?

Jason Knight: President Trump and his administration are terrible. His policies are terrible. It is absolutely the right thing for the Attorney General to be in court swinging and to protect Rhode Islanders from these terrible and despicable policies. As your Attorney General, I’ll be right there participating with the other Democratic Attorneys General to hold the line against President Trump and these awful policies, whether they touch on energy policy, funding, ICE, his efforts to disappear trans folks, which is terrible, and all the other stuff.

Where the next AG needs to be different from Peter Neronha is that they need to take a moment to look inward. There are operations in that office, particularly the criminal division, that really don’t have much to do with the federal government, but need to work and work really well for Rhode Islanders, to protect them and their public safety. There has been a loss of focus on the criminal division, and I think we need to bring that focus back because if we lose that, we’ve really lost the key thing that we rely on the AG’s office for.

Keith Hoffmann: The fight against the Trump Administration’s overreach is absolutely critical. It’s not an either-or. We have to do it. We have to do that work even as we do and perform the other core missions of the office in the criminal division, civil enforcement, environmental protection, ensuring access to health care, defending the state in give or take a billion dollars’ worth of litigation risk at any time, hospital regulation, and important investigatory functions.

We have to do it. We have to protect Rhode Islanders’ fundamental rights. We have to protect our budget. I led the work to plan for the second Trump Administration and the fight against the Trump Administration alongside AG Neronha and our amazing team. We were working two or three jobs at the time because we could not lose sight of those other critical missions, even as we were standing up to the greatest threat to our democracy we’ve ever faced.

One thing I would do differently? The Trump Administration creates a whole new series of challenges for our state. There is the direct harm from Trump, but there’s also the work the federal government is no longer doing in environmental and worker protection, and that impacts, for example, labor trafficking and civil rights, and it makes our healthcare system systemically vulnerable, so we have to step into those gaps. This is making criminal enforcement more challenging. There’s a lot of work we need to do to keep Rhode Islanders safe and help our state move forward, despite what we see at the federal level.

Alan Gordon: Among all these Trump lawsuits, I want to focus on the housing and urban development one. I guess the President would like to see foreigners excluded from federally funded housing. That’s his stated goal. But you know, federally funded housing for decades has vigorously excluded people who used medical cannabis when that became legal. They said,” It’s federally illegal.” Veterans were thrown out of a house for eating a gummy. Addicts were kicked out of rehab for smoking a joint and easing their withdrawal. Kids were taken away from their parents.

“It’s federally illegal.”

Now they want the Attorney General to enforce federal laws to protect other people’s housing. It’s not a state Attorney General’s job to enforce federal law or challenge it that much. When it happens, there’s been procedural cheating by AG Neronha. When a state sues, as a constitutional matter, the U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 2, provides that the suit should be brought in the United States Supreme Court. If you get 20 states from different federal districts piling on in one district, that’s judge shopping. It’s procedural cheating, and I’m going to end that.

Kim Ahern: I will, 100%, continue the work of Attorney General Neronha with respect to suing the Trump Administration, and that’s because, for me, it’s personal. My marriage to my wife, Jenna, is under real-time attack by this administration. They tried to bring a case to the U.S. Supreme Court; it was a bad one with bad facts, but they’ll be back. My three daughters are objectively growing up in a world with fewer rights than I had as a young woman in this country. So when I say I’m gonna fight like hell, I mean it, and I applaud Attorney General Nerona for the work he’s doing.

One thing I would do differently, and you can look at this on my website if you go home and want to learn more, is that I would follow our AGs next door in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and create a whole unit dedicated to reproductive justice and fighting for bodily autonomy, because it’s what the time needs. It’s what women and trans individuals across our state deserve. We need to be firing on all cylinders to fight back.

Sixth question: Rhode Island continues to invest far more resources in responding to violence after it occurs than in preventing it from happening in the first place. As Attorney General, what role do you believe your office should play in preventing domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking before crimes occur? And what investments or partnerships would you prioritize?

Kim Ahern: We need more events, across the field, on this topic. It’s critically important for all the reasons we’ve talked about. I’ve already shared with you that the prosecutors in the Attorney General’s office have too many cases. How is one person going to handle 200 cases when each case has a victim who should feel it should be the most important case? I applaud the General Assembly, and in particular the Superior Court, for creating a new domestic violence court currently. This is being shaped as we speak.

As the next Attorney General, I’m going to be a consensus builder, like I’ve been every step of the way in my career. I’m going to convene the leaders of Sojourner House and the Coalition Against Domestic Violence on day one, and they’ll have a regular seat at my table because prevention starts with you all. It can’t start with the prosecutors. It ends with us.

It needs a consensus-building approach. We need everyone around the table to advocate for more resources in this space, and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career.

One more thing: I would continue the work of the Critical Case Review Committee. If you’re wondering how a prosecutor handles 220 cases, it’s because a group of experts gathers around the table to determine which cases pose the highest lethality risk. That’s right. You have to prioritize them. You have to figure out which victims are likely to be killed. That’s the true work of the Critical Case Review Committee, and that’s why we have to do everything we can to invest in prevention.

Alan Gordon: Preventing this stuff from occurring is part of breaking that cycle. Domestic abuse and human trafficking travel in a loop. When we break that cycle, we prevent recidivism, which is common in both of those areas. Other candidates have been working with the system to make incremental improvements. The improvements I propose are radical and by orders of magnitude, not by drips and drabs.

I’m going to work with the advocacy groups to help retrain the judiciary. I’ve introduced the Man-Up voluntary withholding system to pay for some of the underfunded stuff, and I’m going to send a loud and resounding message to the men of this state: It’s time to Man-Up and end domestic violence and human trafficking for good.

Keith Hoffmann: The mission of the Attorney General has got to be not just about holding those who break the law accountable, but also about trying to prevent these horrific acts from ever occurring. We’ve talked about ensuring that the Special Victims Unit and our victim advocates have sufficient resources to do their jobs. We’ve talked about ensuring access to health care, including mental health care. We’ve talked about housing. and ensuring that victims have access to safe, affordable housing.

The federal government has deprioritized a lot of important enforcement work in favor of civil immigration enforcement. So human trafficking is taking a backseat to civil immigration enforcement by those who used to focus on federal law enforcement agencies on that issue.

We need to focus on that issue at the state level in sex and labor trafficking. When you prioritize those investigations and cases, you identify the wrongdoers and can bring them to an end. You can bring those who coerce and attempt to enslave people into these horrific lives, and for that perpetrator, end the cycle. That’s critical work we need to be prioritizing at the state level when our federal partners will not act.

Jason Knight: The question is about prevention. How do you prevent these things? All the stuff that happens in the AG’s office on the prosecution line is after someone has been hurt. To address the question, the AG can serve as a bully pulpit to lead a multi-pronged effort with other state government entities to educate the public about the dangers of domestic violence, its triggers, and ways to prevent it, including possible curriculum changes in our public schools and health curricula.

You can advocate with the General Assembly to allocate more money to get around this housing problem that we have, because domestic violence is about power and control. How do you get a victim who is suffering out from under that? How do you get them away from the abuser to break the chains of power and control? Physically, how do you get them away?

Housing. I’ve done 10 budgets as a legislator in Rhode Island, and every single time we’ve come up with a budget, I’ve urged the General Assembly to eat its vegetables before its dessert and prioritize the real things like this, before we fund a $45 million Life Sciences Hub. This is where the General Assembly needs to go, and the AG needs to be the biggest cheerleader to get new funds and to fix our housing problems.

Question seven: Voters are just getting to know the candidates and are maybe having a tough time deciding who to vote for. What’s one thing that distinguishes you from your opponents in this race?

Jason Knight: There are a lot of things that distinguish me from my opponents. I’m a veteran of the United States Navy. I’ve been in the court system for 20 years, just about every day. I’ve got 10 years under my belt as a legislator, putting my progressive values into real policy and law. What distinguishes me from the rest of the candidates is that I am the whole package. I bring experience, the right set of values, and a knack for getting things done in state government to bring a kind of leadership to the AG’s office that is aware of, respects and is attuned to both the political and the legal worlds and all the places where the AG, as an independent constitutional officer, can positively affect Rhode Islanders’ lives while doing the missions that were forced upon us by the Trump Administration to hold the line against them, and also doing the missions that we all need to have happen every day, particularly the missions that the Sojourner House is concerned with.

That’s what makes me different. It’s that depth of experience and a record of accomplishment.

Keith Hoffmann: What makes me different from the field is that I’m the only candidate with legal and leadership experience across the whole breadth of the Attorney General’s work. The Attorney General’s office has changed a lot in eight years. This is critical because many Rhode Islanders have understood that the cases we take have changed a little bit, but they might not have seen how the office has changed.

The Attorney General’s office has an important criminal function, but we also have many other important functions: we are in charge of protecting the Environment, your civil rights, access to health care, and consumer protection. We defend the state in significant litigation. We regulate hospitals. We have an investigatory unit that does both criminal and civil investigations. I have experience doing all of this work, leading the office on the executive team, nd fighting the Trump Administration and winning.

Alan Gordon: The thing that distinguishes me from my three learned friends up here is I’ve never worked for the Attorney General’s office, but I know its criminal and civil side very well because I’ve been locked in litigation with them, what they call “lawfare.”Peter Neronha, for the last eight years of his term, and before that as U.S. Attorney, has hit my campaign manager and me with over two dozen false charges, many of them felonies. Not a single one stuck. We beat them all without a lawyer.

We know the law failed. We know that gaslighting by an attorney general’s office is supposed to help people. That’s what an abuser does. So I’ve got an advantage over these people because that office has abused me, well, maybe they have while they worked there, but that office has not criminally accused them.

I have, so I understand it, and I have a perspective they can’t have.

Kim Ahern: Okay, a moment of levity, I suppose. I’m confident that I’m the only person on this stage who has won a national championship in women’s rugby. Go Providence College Friars! By the way, you learn a lot on the rugby field that matters. If anyone’s been part of a team, you know that you have a common goal, but everybody brings a different skill set to the table. And you want a leader at the Attorney General’s office who recognizes the importance of teamwork.

The AG’s office is just a big team. Everybody is trying to work in the same direction to accomplish a common goal. I think you want someone tough enough to play women’s rugby at the national level as your next Attorney General.

Closing remarks:

Kim Ahern: We’ve been talking about the future. I want to tell you about my past. Both of my grandfathers served this country in World War II. They returned home and taught me values that stay with me to this day: show up, work hard, and leave this place better than you found it. My late mom left a small town to have a career dedicated to service at the United States State Department. My late father dropped out of high school, served two tours in Vietnam, came back a changed man, and fought to make our country stronger and more just. They taught me that titles don’t matter. What matters is showing up, doing the work, and standing up for what is right.

Those values carry me today. They carry me, first and foremost, as a parent to the three kids you’ve heard me talk about. I want them to grow up in a world where they are safe, their rights are protected, and they have every opportunity. That’s what I want for everyone across Rhode Island.

Alan Gordon: I’m going to formally advise the governor to declare a domestic abuse emergency in the State of Rhode Island to facilitate the Man-Up funding for Sojourner House and the state’s shelter needs. Years ago, the State of Rhode Island used the emergency procedure to open new pot stores during a business emergency. This is a little bit more important. It would be unconscionable not to use that mechanism for this greater need.

I’m going to protect everybody’s rights, even if my man, Donald Trump, doesn’t like it. I’m going to reform the AG’s office back to its core functions so we can help people again. I hope my ideas have inspired some of you. I hope some of those ideas catch hold before the election. There’s no reason to wait. I will close with a short prayer on this Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel: “Our Lady, I beseech thee, help us men break the cycle. In your name, amen.”

Keith Hoffmann: The state we love and live in is facing significant challenges. We’ve talked about some of them today. Challenges in healthcare, housing, and from the federal government. One challenge we didn’t get a chance to talk about, which is not often discussed, is victim compensation. This is the thing that most Rhode Islanders probably spend little time thinking about, but the impact of our broken victim compensation system on their lives is significant and far-reaching.

You need an Attorney General who has experience across all of this critical work and a deep commitment to serving Rhode Islanders in these upcoming fights. I believe I am that candidate, and I would be honored to earn your support in this upcoming election.

Jason Knight: I don’t think that you can say it enough: We are at a moment of peril for Rhode Island and the United States of America. President Trump’s administration tears at our freedoms every day. They are corrupt to the core, and we have to be on guard and fight back against that. Rhode Island needs to make the right choice in this next AG’s election because it is as important as any other office on the ballot.

Who is going to protect you and your families from all of that, the street crime, and the wrongdoers in the boardrooms who want to turn your families and your kids into profit? You need someone who’s got the right values but also a demonstrated record of putting those values into action and protecting you.

That is what I’m bringing today: a deep experience in the courtroom, a deep experience in the General Assembly, and a no-nonsense approach. We are going to stand up for and fight to protect Rhode Islanders from the bad guys and the wrongdoers wherever they are: in a boardroom, on the street corner, or in the White House.