Ellen Rosenblum announced she will not seek a fourth term next year as Oregon attorney general.

She made the disclosure in a statement Tuesday, Sept. 19, to Oregon Public Broadcasting, but then followed it up with messages posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I am immensely grateful for the faith you have placed in me for these past 11 years,” she said in those tweets.

“In the meantime, I’m not going anywhere for the next 15 months. I look forward to continuing to give this job my best. Let’s keep fighting to ensure every Oregonian has the opportunity to succeed and thrive.”

She also posted on her Facebook page this message from the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which represents the top lawyers in 23 states and the District of Columbia: “We thank her for her dedication to the rights of the American people and all she’s done throughout her career.”

Rosenblum, now 72, was elected in 2012. She was appointed six months early when her Democratic predecessor, John Kroger, left to become president of Reed College. She had defeated Dwight Holton, a former acting U.S. attorney, in the Democratic primary that May.

She was re-elected in 2016 and 2020.

She is the first woman elected to the job.

Her announcement means that all three statewide offices will be open in 2024. Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, an appointee, said she is not seeking a full term, and state Treasurer Tobias Read is limited to two consecutive terms. Read has announced he will run for secretary of state.

It will be the first time since 2008 that no incumbent will be running for any of the three offices.

“While there are no term limits in Oregon for attorney general, I have decided to impose my own and concluded three-plus terms is enough,” Rosenblum said in her statement to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Term limits for attorney general were in effect from 1992 until the Oregon Supreme Court overturned them in 2002.

Though the attorney general is the state’s chief lawyer and leads Oregon’s largest staff of attorneys in the Department of Justice, most crimes are prosecuted by the elected district attorneys in Oregon’s 36 counties. The attorney general advises state agencies, defends criminal convictions appealed from circuit courts, and represents Oregon in state and federal courts.

Unlike judges, the attorney general is not required to be a lawyer — though every one of the 17 individuals who have held that office since it was created in 1891 has been a lawyer.

A busy tenure

Rosenblum has been best known for leading or joining multistate lawsuits against the federal government during the presidency of Republican Donald Trump. More recently, she announced a lawsuit on behalf of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund against Fox Corporation, alleging that Fox News broadcasts of Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election resulted in lost earnings for the state pension fund.

Along with Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson — now running for governor — Rosenblum led a countersuit to a Texas group seeking to overturn a longstanding federal approval of mifepristone, a medication used to induce abortion. A federal appeals court narrowed access to the drug — but because of the Oregon/Washington lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed for continued access to the drug nationwide while it takes up an appeal from the Texas decision.

Rosenblum’s Department of Justice is also defending the validity of a 2022 ballot measure that imposes new restrictions on firearms: Completion of a full background check before a purchase, a requirement for training before someone can obtain a permit for a firearms purchase, and a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines. A federal judge has upheld the law, but a Harney County judge is conducting a six-day trial. Decisions are likely to be appealed.

After several tries, Rosenblum succeeded in 2023 legislation that bars firearms with untraceable parts known as ghost guns. Majority Democrats had to retreat from two other provisions after minority Republicans walked out of the Senate for six weeks to protest those proposals and an abortion-access bill.

Background

Rosenblum earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1971, and her law degree in 1975, both from the University of Oregon. One of her law professors was Dave Frohnmayer, who was attorney general himself from 1981 through 1991, before he returned to the university as law school dean and then president.

After five years in private practice, Rosenblum was an assistant U.S. attorney in Eugene and Portland from 1980 to 1998. She was appointed a Multnomah County judge in 1988 and served until 2005, when she was appointed to the Oregon Court of Appeals. She retired from the bench in 2011.

Frohnmayer and Hardy Myers, a Democrat who was attorney general from 1997 through 2009, were among the early endorsers of Rosenblum.

Rosenblum is married to Richard Meeker, cofounder and former publisher of Willamette Week.

Had she not run for attorney general, Rosenblum might have pursued the presidency of the American Bar Association. She said she abandoned her candidacy once she decided to run for attorney general.