A business lawyer and political newcomer is the latest in a field of GOP candidates to make violent crime a key pillar of their 2022 pitches to unseat Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.

Jim Schultz launched his maiden bid for public office on Thursday with a video announcement steeped in the criminal justice debates that have swirled in the state for much of the past two years. In it, he blames the incumbent Democrat Ellison for the property damage that occurred during the 2020 civil unrest that followed George Floyd's killing.

"Minnesotans deserve better from their leaders," Schultz said in the video. "I'm running for attorney general as a public servant, not a politician, to ensure public safety and to protect Minnesota families, communities and small businesses."

Schultz, who lives in Minnetonka, is a native of the small central Minnesota town of South Haven. He graduated from Harvard Law School before returning to Minnesota to work as an attorney in the private sector. Schultz also serves on the board of the Front Line Foundation, a nonprofit that supports police and other first responders.

Former Minnesota Republican Party Chair Ron Eibensteiner is listed as the chair for Schultz's campaign. Schultz joins a GOP field of candidates that includes Doug Wardlow, who ran unsuccessfully against Ellison in 2018, former state Rep. Dennis Smith and attorney Lynne Torgerson.

Ellison launched his re-election campaign last month with a message focused on consumer protection. But Ellison tweaked a slogan used through much of his first term to add that he wanted to help people "afford their lives and live with dignity, safety and respect."

Schultz's announcement included jabs at Ellison — and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar — over their support for the failed Minneapolis ballot measure to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a public safety agency.

Yet while crime stands to be a major theme in 2022, the Attorney General's Office is far more limited in its capacity to prosecute than some of the state's larger county attorneys' offices, such as Hennepin and Ramsey. Ellison inherited an office that had the equivalent of just one full-time attorney dedicated to criminal prosecutions and has unsuccessfully lobbied the Legislature for up to 11 new full-time criminal prosecutors.

Ellison's office has typically focused its criminal prosecutions on cases where smaller counties need help handling homicides or sex crimes. But the office has since garnered national attention for its work prosecuting the former Minneapolis police officers charged with killing Floyd and is now prosecuting the ongoing criminal jury trial of former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter, charged with manslaughter for the April shooting death of Daunte Wright.