Former U.S. Attorney Nick Brown launches 2024 campaign for Attorney General

For­mer Unit­ed States Attor­ney Nick Brown today became the sec­ond can­di­date to jump into the 2024 con­test for Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Wash­ing­ton State, which will be open next year due to incum­bent Bob Ferguson’s deci­sion to run for gov­er­nor after Jay Inslee announced his retire­ment. Brown, a Demo­c­rat, just left the Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion last month in prepa­ra­tion for this cam­paign announcement.

As the U.S. Attor­ney for West­ern Wash­ing­ton (the state is divid­ed into two dis­tricts, West­ern and East­ern), it was Brown’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to bring civ­il actions and pros­e­cute law­break­ers on behalf of the Depart­ment of Justice.

Now he is seek­ing to become the state’s chief law enforce­ment offi­cer — one of nine inde­pen­dent­ly elect­ed posi­tions in the state’s exec­u­tive department.

“No mat­ter your age, race, gen­der, zip code, or who you love, we all have the right to be safe. Safe from crime. Safe from gun vio­lence. Safe from dis­crim­i­na­tion. And live in a safe envi­ron­ment. Keep­ing Wash­ing­ton fam­i­lies safe has been my life’s work. That’s why I’m run­ning,” Brown explained.

“As Attor­ney Gen­er­al I will crack down on gun vio­lence head on, pro­tect our democ­ra­cy, stand up to cor­po­ra­tions tak­ing advan­tage of con­sumers, and always fight to pro­tect abor­tion access in our state,” he added.

Brown joins State Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra, a North­west Pro­gres­sive Foun­da­tion board­mem­ber, on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side of the 2024 field for Attor­ney Gen­er­al. Dhin­gra declared her can­di­da­cy back in May. No Repub­li­can con­tenders have emerged yet. Fer­gu­son’s pre­de­ces­sor Rob McKen­na is the most recent Repub­li­can to have been elect­ed to the post, win­ning con­sec­u­tive terms in 2004 and 2008.

Brown is a vet­er­an and alum of Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s office, as his bio notes.

“After his time in the Army, Nick returned home to Wash­ing­ton, where he first worked as a pros­e­cu­tor, and then was appoint­ed as gen­er­al coun­sel for Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee. In his time with Gov­er­nor Inslee, he stood up to Don­ald Trump and his hate­ful Mus­lim ban, and over­saw the governor’s work to end the death penal­ty in our state,” his cam­paign web­site says. (NPI sup­port­ed the Gov­er­nor’s work to end the death penal­ty. Five years ago today, we released polling show­ing that near­ly sev­en in ten like­ly Wash­ing­ton vot­ers favored life in prison alter­na­tives.)

The web­site then men­tions Nick­’s work at Paci­fi­ca Law Group, which has rep­re­sent­ed NPI in sev­er­al mat­ters over the years: “Nick then served as a part­ner at one of the pre­mier law firms in the region, help­ing pub­lic, pri­vate, and non-prof­it clients nav­i­gate com­plex civ­il lit­i­ga­tion and con­sti­tu­tion­al issues.”

The web­site says of Brown’s most recent chap­ter: “In 2021, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden nom­i­nat­ed Nick to become the U.S. Attor­ney for West­ern Wash­ing­ton where he was praised for his work fight­ing drug car­tels and sex traf­fick­ing, address­ing the fen­tanyl cri­sis, and reduc­ing vio­lent crime. He also chaired the Attor­ney General’s Advi­so­ry Sub­com­mit­tee on Civ­il Rights, and brought a focus to keep­ing every Wash­ing­ton­ian safe by pre­vent­ing and pros­e­cut­ing hate crimes, and pro­tect­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble and mem­bers of mar­gin­al­ized communities.”

Brown’s web­site does­n’t have an endorse­ments page yet, but mem­bers of Inslee’s staff did pub­licly cheer his announce­ment from their per­son­al accounts on Twit­ter, indi­cat­ing where the loy­al­ties of Team Inslee will be in this cam­paign. Brown is also a good friend of cur­rent Solic­i­tor Gen­er­al Noah Pur­cell, who works for Bob Fer­gu­son, and Pur­cell has report­ed­ly ruled out run­ning because of Brown’s bid.

In Brown and Dhin­gra, Democ­rats have two strong choic­es for Attor­ney Gen­er­al next year. This could be the extent of the field of cred­i­ble can­di­dates on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side. Oth­ers who explored a run four years ago have said or sig­naled they’ll take a pass this cycle. State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Drew Hansen is in line to move up to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate with Chris­tine Rolfes’ forth­com­ing exit and Lore­na Gon­za­lez is focused on her impor­tant work with the ACLU of Washington.