Committee advances bills expanding Attorney General assistance and clarifying prosecutorial sanctions

The committee advanced two related measures on March 19, 2026: SB604, which would permit the state Attorney General's office to step in as a resource or assume prosecution in certain conflict or disqualification situations, and SB605, which would expand explicit grounds for disciplining elected prosecutors through the prosecuting attorneys qualifications commission.

Sponsor Senator Bill Kouser described SB604 as "a force multiplier for local district attorneys" that restores a prior practice for the Attorney General to take initial jurisdiction when prosecutors are disqualified or local offices lack manpower. He cited recent high-profile examples when conflicts or staffing shortages complicated prosecutions and said the change would give the AG's office a "first bite at the apple"; if the AG declines, the Public Accountability Commission (PAC) would continue searching for other local prosecutors.

On SB605, Kouser told the committee the bill clarifies that failures to make "reasonable efforts" to comply with crime-victim notification statutes, open-records laws, discovery obligations (title 17), impartiality/conflict-of-interest rules, and Rule 3.8 of professional conduct can be grounds for sanctions by the prosecutorial oversight commission. He referenced prior disciplinary inquiries and said the goal is to bolster public confidence in prosecutors' impartiality and reliability.

Ian Heap, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission, testified that PAQC has jurisdiction only over elected district attorneys and solicitors (not assistants or staff) and raised practical concerns about coordinating enforcement when courts or appellate panels are concurrently resolving discovery or other legal questions. "There are implementation things that you may want to look at, even perhaps fine tuning," Heap told the committee, adding the commission was not taking a formal policy position but wanted to flag jurisdictional and coordination issues.

Committee members asked whether ongoing investigations and prosecutions remain protected from open-records requests; the chair and sponsor confirmed that ongoing investigations are exempt absent a court order. After discussion, the committee moved do-pass recommendations: SB604 was advanced (voice vote, recorded as passing with one no vote noted) and SB605 was also advanced by voice vote. The transcript includes no roll-call tallies for either measure.

Next steps: both bills were reported favorably to the next stage in the legislative process; sponsors and PAQC staff indicated they may work further on implementation details.