EUGENE / SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (KMTR) -- One of two hopefuls for Oregon's top prosecutor seat stopped in the Eugene-Springfield area Saturday. Democrat Dwight Holton is running for the position of Oregon’s Attorney General in the May Primary Election.Holton has spent the last 15 years as a Federal prosecutor, most recently as Oregon's acting U.S. Attorney. As state Attorney General, he says one of his major concerns will be crime prevention. Holton stated 85 percent of the people in the Oregon corrections system have drug issues which need to be addressed.
"If we want to get serious about the budget, if we want to get serious about getting this right, we need to fund early intervention programs. We need to fund public education and we need to fund addiction treatment programs,” he said. “We work together to try to prevent crime on the front end so we don't have to deal with law enforcement problems on the back end - that's the way we should be doing business.”
Holton said he’d also put more emphasis on consumer protection for those who aren’t on the internet. He says he also wants to crack down on mortgage fraud and big banks' aggressive foreclosure tactics.
Holton is running against another Democrat, Ellen Rosenblum. No Republican filed in the May race. The winner will replace attorney general John Kroger, who announced in October 2011 that he will step down because of a medical issue. He has since taken a position as the President of Reed College.
