Republican candidate for California Attorney General, Nathan Hochman hopes voters in the state will consider the people in the race over party.

Hochman has a resume that features 30 years of criminal justice experience as a federal prosecutor and defense attorney, along with decades of experience working civil and appellate cases. The moderate Republican says he is pro-choice and did not vote for Donald Trump in the last two elections.

Hochman is aiming to capitalize on a time in which crime is a top concern for voters, and during a year when the district attorneys of the two largest cities in California, San Francisco and Los Angeles, were either recalled or nearly faced one. Our conversation with Hochman has been edited for clarity and space.

Related | Full Voter Guide, election coverage here

Q: What have you learned so far on the campaign trail?

Hochman: What I’ve learned is that voters up and down this state — no matter what political party they’re a part of — they share the same frustration and anger actually when it comes to their safety and security. People view your food, shelter, safety and security as your top 3 needs and when the government is not giving them safety and security, they start to get extremely concerned.

Our current attorney general Rob Bonta has failed. His failure is not surprising given he has zero years of law enforcement experience before he took the job of chief law enforcement officer. I have 30 years of criminal justice experience as a federal prosecutor, a U.S. assistant attorney general and defense attorney, so the fact that he’s enacted the most pro-criminal agenda shouldn’t be unexpected because he has no law enforcement experience.

My agenda is pro-victim, pro-law enforcement, a balanced common-sense approach from someone you would expect as a prosecutor and defense attorney over the last 30 years.

Q: Rob Bonta has only been in office for about a year, what would you do differently than the action he’s taken so far?

Hochman: What I would do differently is on a couple of different fronts. At the 20-thousand-foot approach, I would partner with the police instead of make them our enemy. Rob Bonta on the first day literally in office signaled he did not have their back, that he was more interested in investigating police departments than working with police departments to solve crime, yet the overwhelming number of officers every day are the ones that, when bullets are flying, they go into the bullets rather than run away from them to protect us, they’re doing their jobs correctly.

When I was with the U.S. attorney’s office, I would not hesitate to prosecute a police officer who crossed the line but I will absolutely back the police officers who are doing their job correctly every single day.

With respect to funding police departments, I would be one of the biggest advocates that if you want a better-hired, trained and supervised police department, you’ve got to pay for it. I would be a huge advocate of making sure they get the funding for their job rather than defund them or cut their budgets.

I would ensure that all crimes have proportionate consequences. Rob Bonta is the chief law enforcement officer, basically the boss of every DA in California, including George Gascon in Los Angeles. So when George Gascon goes ahead and doesn’t prosecute people who steal just under $950, signaling to them they can do that every single day and nothing’s going to happen to you, the attorney general could come in and replace George Gascon to prosecute every single case where he chooses not to do that. I would.

On cash bail, Rob Bonta was the sponsor of the bill in the Assembly [which voters ultimately rejected]. He actually believes somehow our safety and security is enhanced when people can get arrested in the morning and be out by the afternoon.

I have argued on both the prosecutorial side and defense side hundreds of bail motions across this state. I understand the type of people who are true safety threats, or flight risks who need to be behind bars or to have a bail set for them that is so high that they understand their family members will lose all their property if they go ahead and abscond or commit a crime.

Rob Bonta has not participated in one bail hearing in his entire life; he’s not participated in one criminal investigation, in one criminal sentencing, in one criminal charge where he actually did it. Rob Bonta is a dentist pretending to be a heart surgeon. I’m like a 30-year heart surgeon who has done the operation hundreds of times. And the patients are Californians: The ailment is our safety and security. So do you want someone with literally no experience never having done heart surgery do heart surgery on you, or never having done law enforcement to be our chief law enforcement officer or do we want someone with 30 years of experience like myself take care and restore the safety and security of Californians? That’s the choice for the voters.

Q: What do you say to voters who hear about your pro-law enforcement agenda who might take pause with you having to investigate officer-involved killings?

Hochman: I would say again, look at my record. How many times has Rob Bonta investigated a police officer? I’ll answer that myself: none. How many trials has Rob Bonta done against police officers who have crossed the line? None. I’ve done both. I’ve investigated police officers; we went after the major elite sheriff units in Los Angeles county. These are sadly sheriff units that were stealing from the drug dealers, selling it, stealing their money, using it, and we went after them. We did undercover work on that. We brought 15 cases to trial, I did one of those cases myself.

I understand how to go after police officers. We protected their due process rights, their constitutional rights, and put them all in jail because they crossed the line.

Q: You call yourself a moderate Republican, what does that mean?

Hochman: On safety and security, it reflects that balance, and the balance I talk about is that I’m not looking to go back policies where we put blanket policies where we put everybody in jail for 100 years, but now we have blanket policies where we put no one in jail for any time. I operate in the middle, or what I call the hard middle. It requires you to do an individualized analysis of each defendant, their crime, their criminal history, their impact on the victim. To determine who the true public safety threats are, who should be behind bars and the ones who can serve their debt to society through home detention or community service, you need someone with experience to calibrate where that line is.

Other parts of what I call being a moderate Republican is that I am pro-choice. I’ve always been pro-choice and I will respect and enforce every law on the books protecting a woman’s reproductive rights. I did not vote for Donald Trump in either the 2020 or 2016 race. I didn’t vote for anyone for president in those races and when it comes to gun law enforcement, I will enforce the laws on the books in the state of California.

I will do two things Rob Bonta has absolutely failed to do. We have a list of 26,000 people who are prohibited from owning guns today that list has only grown in the last year. I have vowed that within 18 months, I will clear that list. They already have the money appropriated to go after the people who have illegal guns in our society; they estimate that could be somewhere close to 500,000 guns in our society right now that are illegally possessed.

I would also protect the rights of law-abiding citizens who want to go ahead and go through the process of giving their personal information to be able to get licenses to carry guns. Hundreds of thousands of people had their personal information leaked on the internet by Rob Bonta’s department of justice.

We’re talking judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers — even domestic violence victims — had their home addresses, their dates of birth, leaked by the California Department of Justice because they complied with the laws. Rob Bonta supposedly supports people complying with the laws, yet leaks their information, what’s his response? Did he say, ‘Look the buck stops with Rob Bonta? I take full responsibility and any consequences for this?’ Absolutely not. His response was and I’m going to paraphrase it: ‘Oops’. And then he went ahead and got a and is paying for a very expensive law firm to do an investigation. And here’s what I guarantee: that law firm will not give the results of his investigation until November 9th.

Q: How hard is it for you knowing Gov. Gavin Newsom handpicked Rob Bonta and appointed him to this position, with Newsom having as much support behind him right now in the state?

Hochman: As far as dealing with the Democratic machine that Gavin Newsom has, that machine with Gavin Newsom at the helm is so powerful that it doesn’t even need to apparently advertise in California. Rob Bonta is hoping to hitch his train to the back of that caboose and take that to victory.

Two things are going to stand in that way that have happened for the first time in 20 years in 2022. First: Safety and security is polling as a top three issue. For the first time in California in the last 20 years, the evidence of that is in LA and San Francisco. In San Francisco, the most progressive city, recalled the most progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin, 55-45 and of the 55% that voted to recall him, 7/8 of them were Democrats and Independents. That’s huge.

In LA, even though the recall’s not going forward right now, it’s set three records. First: it has over 500,000 signed petitions against the LA DA on my issue: safety and security. Before that, there has been zero. And by the way over 3/4 of those signatures are Democrats and independents.

Second, 37 cities in Los Angeles mostly controlled by Dems and Independents passed no-confidence motions on the DA George Gascon. Third, 97.8% of George Gascon’s 800 people who work for him, the deputy district attorneys who work for him who go to court every day took a vote and they voted to support his recall. So you have a groundswell of discontent and frustration on my issue of safety and security and the California Attorney General position is uniquely situated among the statewide positions to be dominated by safety and security concerns. I believe that’s the first element that makes the soil fertile for change because if people don’t feel the need for change they’re not going to change.

Then you compare myself versus Rob Bonta. I would argue Rob Bonta is the weakest Democrat that the Democrats have fielded in 20 years. You have Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris, Xavier Becerra. Say what you will about their policies, but you couldn’t beat their name recognition. It would be almost impossible. Rob Bonta is fairly unknown, still today by most people in the state of California. He has no law enforcement background compared to my 30 years and he’s enacted a pro-criminal agenda along with George Gascon in LA.

The conditions on the ground and the weakest Democratic opponent that open the opportunity to break the stranglehold the Democrats have had on this position and other statewide positions for well over a decade.

Q: Governor Newsom put a moratorium on the death penalty, what is your stance on it?

Hochman: On all issues, again, I will enforce all laws on the books in the state of California. The death penalty has come up for votes in the last 20 years and voters have consistently not overturned or gotten rid of the death penalty as a potential sanction in the worst of worst cases. My job is to uphold the laws on the books and if there’s a death penalty conviction, or investigation as long as it meets the standards of due process and evidence, that’s my job. The hat that I’m wearing is the chief law enforcement officer, not the 81st assemblymember, the 41st state senator, not the governor. If the governor exercises his power lawfully, the people that have to deal with that are the voters, Californians who either want to vote him in with that agenda or not, my job is to enforce the laws.

Q: Personally, as someone with your law enforcement background, is the death penalty something you generally support or not?

Hochman: With my background, I support it in very limited circumstances, First, the evidence has to be there. Second, the due process rights have to be fully respected and they get reviewed. It’s the most reviewed type of conviction in the entire system. That’s why it takes so long. It goes through the entire state process then there can be a state habeas process then there can be a federal habeas process where the conviction gets challenged over and over again to see if there’s any problems with the conviction then as we know, very often it does get thrown out.

It needs to be reserved for the worst of the worst of the worst offenders in our system, guaranteed by the best scrutiny you can have of any conviction where the evidence supports that conviction, and again the rule would be to enforce the law at that point.

Q: Addressing homelessness is one of your campaign promises, what would you do in that space?

Hochman: Governor Newsom recently signed the CARE COURT legislation, and the idea behind it is that 70% of the homeless population suffers from severe mental illness, substance abuse or both. He chose a segment of that as part of it and he went ahead and signed the CARE COURT bill to give a judge a third option, because up until now if a homeless person gets presented to the judge that’s committed a crime, the judge could put him in jail or put him back on the street. There wasn’t this third option of ordering under strict circumstances, ordering treatment for up to 12 months that can be renewed another 12 months that’s what the care court does. The defendant has their own lawyer to argue whether it’s appropriate or not.

It allows a third option that we haven’t had for 40 years to deal with people with mental health issues — I support that. I have publicly said when Governor Newsom gets it right either intentionally or stumbles into it, I will support it. Ronald Reagan used to say there is no limit to the good you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit. I believe in that.

But now let me show you when Gavin Newsom did something stupid on this exact type of issue. He had a bill, AB 1542, before him a year ago, it was to do for substance abuse, drug addiction what he just did for CARE COURTs. It was going to set up a pilot project in Yolo County that was going to have this mandatory option for judges to order substance abuse treatment for people suffering with severe drug addiction. It was approved by the state Assembly 65-1 nothing, gets approved by the State Assembly unanimously.

It got on the governor’s desk and he vetoed it. Why? Because he says people can’t solve a drug addiction unless they do it voluntarily and mandatory treatment is not part of the solution. He couldn’t be more wrong, I think Governor Newsom was wrong. He just consigned people with drug addictions on the street to stay there. To actually fuel those drug addictions, many of those have to do crime in order to pay for those drug addictions.

Q: Surely you’re going to have to work with the governor. Would you reach across the aisle to work on those solutions? Would it be a checks and balances system where you hold him accountable or a combination of both?

Hochman: I would absolutely hold him accountable, and that’s not what’s happening now. All of the statewide offices are Democrat. You have a supermajority in the state legislature that is Democrat. Nobody is holding anyone accountable with an independent voice. If all your state positions are saluting you every morning, ‘Yes Governor Newsom. Yes sir, whatever you want sir,’ that is not the voice you need in Sacramento.

Anytime Gavin Newsom wants to do something that is going enhance Californian’s safety and security, sign me up — I will be his partner in that. He would be my partner. Anytime I want to do something to enhance safety and security, I need to make my case, not just to the voters, but to Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature; I might need more money for it. What I’m hoping is that if Gavin Newsom can put his politics to the side, which would be kind of a stretch for him, let’s assume he can — I hope he can — that he’ll actually, if I make sense, if I make my case, he will agree with me. I’ve had great success working across the aisle particularly because safety and security should not be a partisan issue. I anticipate having that success with Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature going forward.

Q: Human trafficking, fentanyl, Proposition 57 — these are issues you have been vocal about. What else would you like to see change, or get involved in?

Hochman: Proposition 57, the designation between nonviolent, non-serious offenses. The definition of human trafficking, by definition, sounds like it should be violent and serious, and … California now tells them it’s a non-violent, non-serious offense, How can you tell victims that what’s happening to them is non-violent and non-serious with Prop 57, including rape of an unconscious woman and lewd acts with children.

If voters decide between Rob Bonta and myself on who is going to make them safe and secure, I will win the election. But if voters reflexively vote on their party affiliation, I will have much more difficulty at that point.

KCRA 3 is working with Rob Bonta’s office to also organize a time to speak with him.

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