St. Louis Native Elad Gross runs as Democratic candidate for Missouri Attorney General

Elad Gross is running as the Democratic candidate for Attorney General (AG) on the basis of making the office more known and “responsive” among people in Missouri. Gross is running against Republican incumbent Andrew Bailey and Republican Candidate Will Scharf.

Elad Gross

St. Louis native Gross received his undergraduate degree at Duke University and went to Law School at Washington University in St. Louis. He worked as the assistant attorney general for former Missouri AG Chris Koster and ran for the office in 2020.

Gross describes a lot of his law work as having to do with civil cases and representing the rights of workers.

“I do a number of Sunshine Law cases to defend our rights to see what our government is doing and that's probably been the most high profile stuff that I've done since that went up to Missouri Supreme Court,” he said.

Gross said one of the main points he wants people to take away from his campaign is who their Attorney General is and be responsive to their issues. He said after he has talked to many citizens in Missouri he’s realized “most people” don’t know who their AG is.

“If you don't know the name of your attorney (general), that's a big, big red flag,” Gross said. “Something that we can change is just to make that office way more responsive to the people of Missouri, and whether that's, you know, dealing with scammers or whether that's dealing with issues in our community. When it comes to crime or violence or anything else.”

He said one big issue he would like to address as AG is issues with scammers and getting the “Consumer Protection Division ( of the AG’s office) working and functional again.”

Gross said things like a person or their family getting scammed should be addressed by the AG. He said they also need to enforce the Do Not Call list more as an office.

Gross said he would also like to start up a Civil Rights division and bring back their agricultural and conservation division. He said the current office’s staffing level is “much lower now than it has been.”

"So the office over the last three administrations has become more top-heavy. So there's more folks at the top who are making a lot of money. And then there's less line attorneys, who are doing most of the work,” Gross said.

He said on day one the elected AG could rapidly change the structure of the office. Gross said hiring more people wouldn’t cost more for Missourians.

Gross said there’s been a lot of money budgeted for the office along with the governor asking “for millions of more dollars for it."

"I think certainly hiring more folks to do the job is really imperative. It's extremely important, but it's an office that actually can bring in more money. For Missourians, if we're a lot more proactive there, too,” he said.

Gross said that the civil rights division he is proposing would also have a Public Corruption Unit. He said the unit would make sure tax money is going where it is supposed to.

Gross said he would like to see an AG intervene with the state when addressing violence in communities, not just after but before crimes are committed. He said they would intervene when people commit crimes to make sure they know what is expected of them but to also offer services to them.

“A lot of people fall into this trap of violence or committing crime because they don't think that there's other opportunities,” Gross said. “What is it that you need in order to be successful? How can we put you in a better position, and maybe that's housing, maybe that's educational opportunities, maybe that's connections to a job. Transportation is a really big deal throughout Missouri too. But if we coordinate both the prosecution side of that but also this diversion prevention side of it before ever has to hit the court system, then you're really solving a lot of these problems.”

He said that local communities can do a lot on their own but not all of it due to being “stretched so thin.”

Gross said he would also like to set up a Missouri Attorney General app for people to see warnings about their area.