Election 2022: The fight for Douglas County Attorney

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - There are less than two weeks until the November election and one of the hottest races here in the Omaha area is the battle for Douglas County attorney.

The race pits a well-known incumbent versus a lawyer who served as the director of Legal Aid of Nebraska.

Don Kleine is hoping to win a fifth term as Douglas County’s top legal official, this time as a Republican after changing parties in a bitter split with Democrats dating back to 2020 and the deadly unrest in the old market, during protests over the killing of George Floyd.

Challenger Dave Pantos, a Democrat, is hoping to unseat him. He prides himself on representing the underprivileged and seeking fair and equal justice.

The two candidates could not be more different. Kleine says he’s the candidate who brings leadership and experience. Pantos says the office is in need of major change.

“I’ve got a great team here between my Chief Deputy Brenda Beadle and myself we have 60 years of law enforcement experience we’ve tried over 200 criminal jury trials, some of the most infamous in the state of Nebraska history and we’ve been successful at that,” Kleine said.

“In 2020, my opponent made it a very partisan office by doing a press conference and endorsing Donald Trump and making his office an arm of the Republican party. I’ll turn that around by making it nonpartisan focusing on fairness, safety, and criminal justice reform,” Pantos said.

And going forward over the next four years, each candidate sees very different priorities.

“I will be focused on keeping our streets safe but let’s do it in a smart way. Let’s move away from prosecuting nonviolent offenders, folks who are caught with a small amount of drugs, and focus instead on violent crime, addressing racial disparities in the criminal justice system,” Pantos said.

“One of them is youth violence. you know when I first started this job we didn’t have the number of 13, 14, and 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds involved in violent crime. There seems to be more of that now. I put 16 lawyers in the juvenile court system because if we can turn a young person’s life around that’s what we need to do,” Kleine said.

Another point of difference: the retention of lawyers in the Douglas County Attorney’s Office.

Pantos claims highly qualified people are leaving too frequently. Kleine says he oversees an office of 60 people and some have left for high-paying jobs in the private sector.

Others have risen up the ranks all the way to becoming a judge.

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