Of the five candidates running for Pennsylvania attorney general, none is currently under indictment. That's at least a step in the right direction. But one might not always be able to tell, given the tenor of the race to replace incumbent Kathleen Kane.

The Democrat isn’t seeking another term, amid charges that she sought to settle political scores though grand-jury leaks, then lied about doing so under oath. The three Democrats and two Republicans running are promising to restore integrity to the office — but the campaign itself has sometimes been ugly.

The attorney general is paid $158,764 a year to oversee 800-plus employees in an office that handles major crimes and has consumer-protection duties, while representing the state in litigation.

DEMOCRATS

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli is currently the state’s longest-serving district attorney, having held the post for a quarter-century, and he has more trial experience than both of his Democratic rivals combined. He was the party’s nominee for the post in a failed bid to stop Tom Corbett’s re-election to it in 2008.

He’s arguably the most conservative of the three, an anti-abortion Democrat who says that during the 1990s, “We locked people up, and crime went down. That wasn’t a coincidence.” But he also favors more treatment for drug offenders, and would use his office’s powers to require gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms.

In fact, each Democrat received a 100 percent rating from gun-control group CeaseFire Pennsylvania after responding to its questionnaire.

Mr. Morganelli has sharply criticized Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro, the only candidate in the race who has never been a prosecutor. “Your inexperience is an issue, Josh,” Mr. Morganelli said at a February debate.

While Pennsylvania’s previous AG’s all have had prosecutorial backgrounds, it’s not a requirement. Nearly 20 current attorneys general in other states didn’t previously have that experience. Mr. Shapiro countered that focusing on criminal cases has “limited the scope and the role of that office.”

Mr. Shapiro served four terms in the state Legislature, where he championed government-reform proposals, and is now a commissioner in the state’s third-largest county. He is the race’s most liberal candidate, with endorsements from Planned Parenthood and LGBT-rights group Equality PA.

His is the most expansive view of the office, arguing that it should take a more muscular role in addressing concerns such as the environmental practices of natural-gas drillers. He’s also pledged to take legal action over whether state support of education meets constitutional requirements.

In many ways, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. charts a middle course between his Democratic rivals. He’s served nearly as long as Mr. Morganelli, having become D.A. in 1998. Though at the time he, too, was criticized for never having prosecuted a case, his office has since handled over 300,000 indictments.

Mr. Zappala is running as a reform-minded prosecutor whose innovations include creating a unit focused on domestic violence within his office, and advocating for increased use of cameras to document police/civilian encounters. At a time when suspicion of police is high, he said at the February debate, “I’ve had 18 years of experience in Western Pennsylvania trying to demonstrate that our system is fair.” But he’s expressed wariness of Mr. Shapiro’s ambitious visions for the office.

A recent Harper Polling survey found Mr. Shapiro leading with a third of Democratic voters, thanks in part to strong support among “very liberal” voters; Mr. Zappala and Mr. Morganelli both polled in the teens. But the poll showed a third of voters are undecided, and Mr. Zappala should have a geographic advantage April 26: He’s the lone candidate from Western Pennsylvania, where voters tend to support homegrown candidates.

REPUBLICANS

Like their Democrat counterparts, Republicans Joe Peters and John Rafferty are arguing over the value of experience.

“There are a lots of differences between us, but certainly the experience is the biggest one,” said Mr. Peters, who boasts of working his way up from being a police officer in Scranton -- where his father was once mayor -- to serving as the top drug officer in the attorney general’s office, as well as federal work during the Clinton and first Bush administrations.

Mr. Peters said he would bring innovations to the office, including a “veterans advocate” to help former members of the armed forces obtain benefits. Mostly, though, he pledges to bring with him “a wind of qualifications and integrity.”

Mr. Rafferty, meanwhile, spent three years in the AG’s office, where he focused on Medicaid fraud. While Mr. Peters slights that background, Mr. Rafferty said Medicaid fraud prosecutions are “very complex cases. It takes a lot of time to get an arrest.” But he says that the attorney general “is not a super-prosecutor,” and that management skills and understanding law-enforcement issues are key.

Mr. Rafferty is in his fourth term representing Montgomery County in the state Senate. He’s backed law-and-order measures including tougher child-protection laws and a bill cracking down on firearm “straw purchases,” in which guns are bought on behalf of criminals who can’t purchase them directly.

In the past, Mr. Rafferty’s advocacy for public safety workers, and their unions, has put him at odds with fellow Republicans over legislation to block the state from automatically deducting money from public employees to pay for their union’s political activity.

Still, Mr. Rafferty has locked up much of his party’s support. Mr. Peters didn’t formally enter the race until February, after Republican Party leadership had endorsed his rival, and now calls himself “the non-establishment candidate.”

Mr. Rafferty, for his part, has blasted his opponent for a roughly eight-month stint Mr. Peters spent working as a spokesman for Ms. Kane.

“He helped make the mess, and now he wants to clean it up,” said Mr. Rafferty.

“She said, ‘You’ve served and advised most of my predecessors; will you do that for me?’” Mr. Peters countered. “When she said it that way, I said, ‘How can I not?’”

Chris Potter: cpotter@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2533.

First Published: April 10, 2016, 4:00 a.m.