On the Job 

Dave Yost came into office as Ohio Attorney General pledging to champion those state residents who don’t have lobbyists or who can’t afford to take part in government.

“The single mom who struggles to pay both child care and rent. The senior whose medicine costs more every year but whose income does not rise … the unprotected,” Yost said in his inauguration speech.

To put it in more law-enforcement terms, the people Yost wants to protect are the sheep — “kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation,” as the well-known book On Combat puts it.

The book’s author, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a retired Army Ranger, wrote that standing between the sheep and the wolves are the sheepdogs — our police officers, deputy sheriffs, highway patrol officers and many more.

Yost wants to work with the sheepdogs to help build a system that is more fair than the one we have today.

“The rule of law” means “the same rules for everybody, equally and justly applied,” he said in his speech. “The rule of law constrains both politicians and predators in the marketplace. It limits both the rich and the mob.

“I am not the lawyer for the politicians,” he said. “I did not come here for the bureaucrats, or the regulators. I represent the people of Ohio.”

How will he represent them as Attorney General, chief of all law enforcement in the state? The best measure is Yost’s past.

In eight years as Delaware County Prosecutor, Yost partnered with law enforcement to fight for everyday residents of Ohio. He won the first capital murder case in county history and helped take down the county’s largest drug ring.

After that, in eight years as Ohio Auditor, Yost’s public corruption investigations contributed to more than 170 criminal convictions.

Your Attorney General is a dedicated family man and an upstanding public servant who believes in the dignity and discipline of work — lessons he learned from his parents as they built a business from nothing to success, creating hundreds of jobs and providing for their family as he grew up.

After getting his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University and working as a journalist, Yost went to night school at Capital University to get his law degree.

That history shows he is hard-working and prioritizes integrity. But what Yost most wants first responders to know is that his top consideration is results, not politics. He will seek out cooperation and communication, and he wants his 1,500-person office to be a tool for law enforcement.

“Every officer who voluntarily puts on the badge and goes to work accepts a level of risk that demonstrates their good intentions and warrants the presumption of good faith,” Yost says. “As Attorney General, I will make that case to the people we serve.”