State Rep. Craig Williams, opponent in GOP attorney general race make pitches

The two Republican candidates for Pennsylvania attorney general shared their visions for the role during a forum at the conservative Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill.

“If our communities are not safe then nothing else matters,” York County District Attorney Dave Sunday, the state Republican Party-endorsed candidate, told moderator Alex Halper, the vice president of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry.

Sunday offered the audience his story of being an 18-year-old Navy enlistee who later attended college and law school by day while working at UPS at night. “My path to be on this stage is a little different,” he said.

State Rep. Craig Williams of Delaware County, a retired Marine Corps officer and combat pilot, recalled his journey as an Alaskan native who lived around the country before settling in Pennsylvania and running for the Legislature in 2020.

“I’m tired of losing. I’m sick and tired of losing as a Republican Party,” Williams said. “I’m also sick and tired of living next to a place like Philadelphia, where crime is out of control.”

The state’s primary election is on April 23.

There are five Democrats running for the party’s nomination: former state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, former public defender Keir Bradford-Grey, state Rep. Jared Solomon, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer and former county and federal prosecutor Joe Khan.

Williams pulled no punches in describing his hard-nosed approach to prosecutions, vowing to crack down on crime in the state’s larger cities and to partner with the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia to prosecute cases that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner will not.

“What I am bringing to the table is a bona fide, bad-to-the-bone, law-and-order message about prosecuting in these large cities,” Williams said.

Both men said the attorney general’s office is more than a prosecuting office, but one that needs to protect Pennsylvania consumers from fraud and unscrupulous business practices.

Sunday specifically said the state’s seniors need protection, recounting the story of a York County man with dementia who was ripped off by a contractor. “We must advocate for the people who are the weakest amongst us,” he said.

Also, Sunday touted a computer forensic team created by his office to combat child pornography and human trafficking.

Williams said more needs to be done to target repeat offenders, especially those committing crimes with guns. At the same time, he mentioned the influence of drug addiction in the state’s crime problem and shared that he lost his brother to an overdose in 2020.

After hearing personal stories of inmates, Williams said he has helped to get funding for a pilot program where incarcerated men can begin to understand why they have fallen into crime and learn to change their lives.

“Addiction is feeding the criminal element,” Williams said.

When it comes to the state’s economy and businesses, Sunday said the Democratic philosophy has been, “What can I do to get you?” while targeting individuals.

“People have stopped investigating crimes and they have started investigating people and that can never, ever be the case,” said Sunday.

Williams, who worked in energy law for a decade, said progressive policies have “locked down” the state’s energy industry and he would not hesitate to fight them in court.

“You can absolutely open the door for economic opportunities in Pennsylvania if you did one thing today and that’s get out of the way of the energy sector,” he said. “We are sitting on a virtual energy goldmine right here in Pennsylvania.”

When asked about uniting Republican voters, Sunday said that “the left wants nothing more than for us to be divided,” and urged GOP members to stop listening to social media and the news media and begin working together.

Williams said the PA GOP is “on a precipice” and “is about to become irrelevant if we don’t start winning some elections.”

Republican voters across the state, he said, are “tired” of a “handful of people inside of our party picking candidates instead of them,” an apparent shot at Sunday’s endorsement by the PA GOP in January.

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