Signal Statewide sat down with the Republican and Democratic candidates for attorney general in Ohio Last week.
We met Republican Keith Faber at Signal’s office in Columbus. He’s currently the state auditor and has previously served in the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate, where he rose to become Senate President.
What follows is an abridged version of the conversations. Questions and answers have been modestly edited for length and clarity. (You can read more about what’s at stake in the attorney general’s race here.)
Signal: Can you tell me about your background? Parents? Hometown?
Faber: Simple answer. Raised by a single mom. My parents divorced when I was very young. My dad was a highway patrolman in Missouri.
And I spent summers with my dad, periodically growing up.
First one in my family to go to college. First one in my extended family to go to grad school.
John Kulewicz advertises his experience at the state and federal Supreme Court. Have you argued at the Ohio Supreme Court before?
I have not.
Does that matter?
No. My opponent has never prosecuted a case. Does that matter? I would argued that matters more than being in the Ohio Supreme Court. You’ve got a solicitor’s office who’s very good at doing that.
And as auditor, I actually tried a case in Allen County not quite a year ago, convicted of a lady of seven felonies.
You personally tried it?
I did. First auditor in state history. Four day jury trial.
It actually happened kind of as a fluke. We were appointed by the Allen County prosecutor for the special prosecution of the Allen County Transit Authority executive director.
She was stealing from the Transit Authority but had a neat scheme to move, fake the sale of buses and move the money into a political action committee to fund their levy to ask taxpayers for more money.
Our investigation revealed it during one of our audits. The Allen County prosecutor appointed us as special counsel.
Well I tried cases in Allen County before so I was already in their system. It came up and one of my prosecutors said, “Hey you’re all this personally it’s a shame you can’t do grand jury.” And I said, “Why can’t I do grand jury?”
So I went up and did grand jury. We got her indicted on seven felonies. She chose not to plead. I told my staff if we take this to trial, I started it, I’ll finish it. And so I went up and did the four day jury trial and we convicted her of all seven felonies at the highest possible level.
And you’re interested in using the office to target health insurance denials?
Right now, unfortunately, Ohio health insurance companies are denying a disproportionate amount of health insurance claims. Some estimates are up to 25% of all claims are being initially denied, including pre-approved claims.
If you talk to the providers, the hospitals, the doctors, they’re seeing a really remarkable uptick in this with the nebulous denial categories, like ‘unnecessary’ or ‘outside of whatever parameters.’
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What they’re seeing is, is where consumers stay vigilant in fighting the denials, in over 90% cases, the insurance companies are only paying a claim. And that raises a very troubling consumer protection. Their business model is to deny, hope the consumer goes away and we avoid paying a claim versus a claim that we otherwise owe because we’re only going to pay it. That’s a very, very anti-consumer position to be in.
And so what we’re going to do is have a division of the Attorney General’s office who is staffed with trained ERISA health insurance lawyers to go in and help consumers resolve those problems.
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Some claims should be denied. But ultimately, you need to have help for Bob and Betty Buckeye to help what I call Dante’s seven rings of hell they put consumers through.
I’m hearing there’s a power imbalance. As in, maybe a big insurer ought to cover a claim, but they said they don’t need to, so what the heck am I supposed to do?
That’s right. It’s an affordability issue. Health insurance is obscenely expensive right now.
Okay. And the problem is if health insurers are trying to pad their profits and have record profits by the expense of consumers, that’s not good business. That’s not good for Ohio.
One of the big jobs of the AG’s office is certifying petitions as they come in. There’s the fair and truthful standard. I’m sure you’re familiar. The Sixth Circuit dinged Dave Yost for his, I don’t think they used the word abuse, but they kind of described abuse.
They basically complained that Dave was substituting his judgment.
Yes. What do you think of that opinion? Do you think that was fair?
I think the better answer is go to the legislature and get clarifying authority on what the exact role of that is. If it’s just ministerial, you come in, get to certify it, you go forward, are the signatures good? Fine.
But you ought to have the ability, I think the Attorney General ought to have the ability to make sure that the statement that’s on the ballot or on the petitions is accurate.
I don’t think you get to play some of the word games that’s happened in the past.
Part of why I ask is if you win, I don’t think it’s a big secret that the initiative process is liberals’ most potent tool for any policy goal in Ohio. Will petitions get fair readings if you’re AG, even if they’re proposing some kind of undesirable policy?
We will follow the law in all cases.
Let me answer that question more generally. As auditor, I made it very clear. Yes, we get elected in partisan elections. But you’re the auditor for Ohio, not the auditor for Republicans, not the auditor for Democrats, you’re the auditor for Ohio.
The same thing will happen as attorney general. We will be an attorney general for all of Ohio.
I think some of it probably has to do with your current job, but I just think of you as very zealous when it comes to fraud, like rooting out fraud in different public programs. Is that a priority of yours or is that the virtue of the job you have now?
Both.
I mean, look, rooting out waste fraud and abuse should be the priority of every government official. You ought to be able to figure out efficiency. That’s a big thing that we do in the auditor’s office with performance audits.
I’ve convicted now 171 public officials and politicians of lying, cheating, and stealing government money. One hundred seventy-one. That’s a big deal.
And as I said, they’ve been Republicans and Democrats. I’ve convicted two county sheriffs. One was a Republican and one was a Democrat. We do it without regard to fear or favor, without regard to partisan circumstances.
AGs defend state laws. In general, what do you do if you encounter a statute passed by the GA that’s unconstitutional?
It’s interesting.
One, you don’t sacrifice your independent, professional, legal judgment. But you also have a constitutional duty to be the defense lawyer for the general assembly. There’s a presumption that everything that’s passed by the general assembly is constitutional. They’re entitled to have representation on that.
You provide that representation. If you have a conscience to where you can’t because it’s something you look at and you can’t do that, you appoint them the ability to have independent counsel to appoint to do that. They need to have the ability to be represented.
A couple state laws could be on that track now. The Heartbeat Bill, a 6-week abortion ban included. Do you think that violates the reproductive freedom amendment?
Probably.
The answer is that I think the constitutional amendment was pretty clear. I’d have to take a look at the bill. I don’t know what’s in the bill. I honestly haven’t read it. But the ballot initiative was pretty clear. I think it took the issues on abortion mostly off the table.
And I’m a pro-life guy. But I think the voters spoke on that. And until the constitution is amended, it’s going to stop a lot of what you can do.
How about the twenty four hour waiting period? It’s a little more nuanced question.
If the legislature passes it, it’s going to be challenged. [Ohio’s 24-hour waiting period has been on the books for decades and frozen in court since 2024.]
Do you think it’s constitutional?
I don’t know that answer. I’d have to see what’s in it. That’s a little closer call … I’d have to look at the totality of the circumstances.
I believe your staff has answered this question. I want to hear from you. The FirstEnergy trial, Chuck Jones, Mike Dowling is up in January. If you won, that would be yours.
If you win, will that continue unfettered?
Here’s a very simple answer to that question. A prosecutor’s number one job is to do justice. The facts as I know them are the facts as you know them. I haven’t been briefed.
Based on the facts that you hear in the public, prosecution seems to be very warranted.
If the facts support it here, we will prosecute. My guess is we’re going to prosecute and continue prosecution. But my understanding of the timeline on that is the prosecutors that have been appointed on that are going to darn near be at trial by the time I get sworn in.
You don’t change the quarterback in the middle of the game … The fact is that all of the people involved in that case seem to believe the prosecution is warranted. Unless we learn some set of facts that I haven’t heard and you haven’t heard that would support it, we’re going to go forward and prosecute.
More broadly, you’ve been in Ohio politics a while. You know half the people that were in some way or another involved in that. How do you think the state did prosecuting this pretty profound example of political corruption?
I would have thought that they should have prosecuted sooner. I thought it sat around for too long if in fact it was justified. But again, you’re asking me to conclude something without knowing all of it. And if in fact the facts are as they are in the public, it would seem to me that prosecution was justified earlier.
Candidly, the prosecution was also probably justified at FirstEnergy [the company] not just the players at FirstEnergy.
Does Ohio need to amend its death penalty statute?
Yeah, I would probably amend it and add child molestation, but that’s another question. What do you mean, amend it by getting rid of death penalty?
It’s an open question. Should Ohio continue carrying out executions? And if so, how do we do that given our functional inability to right now? Or should we do what Gov. Mike DeWine wants and end it?
Yeah, I’m going to answer that question differently. That’s a question for the General Assembly. I’m now running for the General Assembly. If the General Assembly keeps the death penalty, the General Assembly needs to make sure that the death penalty can be implemented fairly efficiently and consistently.
If you’re having a problem getting certain drugs, look at other methods of execution. There’s always fentanyl.
What if the General Assembly asked you what you think? You wouldn’t be a lawmaker but they might want to know what the Attorney General thinks?
I support it. I’ve been clear. I support the death penalty.
On Flock, should law enforcement be able to continue their use of Flock as it is?
No. Law enforcement should have perimeters and controls and safeguards put on Flock cameras.
Flock Cameras are a very important tool. Most law enforcement will tell you that it may be the best technology since DNA. I think it’s the Tepe case here in Columbus was solved with Flock cameras. I was just up in Marion and they had a kid that was abducted by a guy who met them online that was solved and the kid returned because of Flock cameras.
It’s a very good law enforcement tool. However, they need to have very good controls, a good audit trail, and limit access only for law enforcement purposes. Just like we do with other law enforcement data and communication devices, if you’re using it for non-law enforcement purposes, it should be a felony and it should be prosecuted.
I also think that you ought to seriously consider using warrants if you’re going to try and put together a mosaic of somebody’s travel.
If you’re just saying, “Hey, tell me who went past this camera on this date because we’re trying to get the kid back.” That’s a different scenario. But if you’re saying, “I think Jake is going around this and I want to see where he stops and I want to track him,” I think you need a warrant for that just like you need to take somebody’s cell phone. I think that’s where the courts are going to ultimately land.
What do you think of the AG’s role in PUCO cases? Is there actual power there for the AG to pressure President Trump?
There’s not. And that’s the issue. Other than the bully pulpit, other than picking the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. I mean, certainly you provide their general counsel for PUCO, but you don’t. PUCO is an independently appointed board for rate regulation. You can use your bully pulpit.
And we will use that as effectively as possible. But the Attorney General doesn’t set electric rates.
You’ve been in public service for 26 years. What’s your big picture vision, either for this job or for Ohio? Where are you trying to get the state with all the service?
What I’ve always tried to do is represent my constituencies to the best of my abilities and try and move things forward. That’s why I supported regulatory reform. That’s why I was the push on making higher ed more affordable. I’m proud of that record. I’m proud of the fact that when I was Senate President, we reduced the cost of college in Ohio by an average of 12.6%.
That’s the first time that’s ever happened. It hasn’t happened since.
My goal is to serve Ohioans and try to make Ohio the best place we can to live, work, and raise a family.
After the interview, Faber drove to an event in Summit County with Nick Adams, briefly President Donald Trump’s would-be ambassador to Malaysia before becoming a Special Presidential Envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism, and Values.