Archive for the ‘Attorney General News’ Category

From Sierra Vista Herald:

The candidates for Arizona attorney general have made the race less about the issues facing the state’s next top prosecutor and more a contest of experience — and their assessments of each other are brutal.

Republican Tom Horne said Democrat Felecia Rotellini misrepresented herself as a veteran prosecutor when she didn’t bring one criminal case to trial in her 13 years as an attorney for the attorney general’s office and has scant experience in trying civil cases. “That does not make you a veteran prosecutor,” Horne said.

Rotellini said Horne was trying divert attention from his absence of prosecutorial experience and the revocation of his license to sell securities decades ago. “Mr. Horne is desperate to come up with something that he can attack me on,” Rotellini said.

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From TimesCall.com:

Stan Garnett, Boulder County’s district attorney and the Democratic candidate for state attorney general, thinks Attorney General John Suthers is too political.

“The attorney general should be the people’s lawyer,” Garnett said at a recent debate between the two candidates for the office.

Suthers, however, told the Times-Call this week that in his lengthy legal career, he’s been accused of “not being political enough.”

Garnett has accused Suthers of being an ideologue and criticized him for joining other states in a lawsuit against the provision in health care legislation that mandates every American have health insurance.

Suthers sees that move as defending federalism and, by extension, the state and all Coloradans. Suthers says the provision in question is an unprecedented expansion of federal power over states that could lead to other mandates. If the federal government can order citizens to purchase health insurance, nothing can stop it in the future from mandating that everyone install solar panels or purchase fuel-efficient vehicles, rather than the current practice of offering rebates or tax incentives to further such causes.

If that happens, Suthers asks, “What’s left of federalism? I submit, not much.”

Whatever you think of the health care legislation, Suthers makes a compelling argument that he’s doing his job of protecting Coloradans, rather than being too political.

We tend to agree.

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Check out GOP Candidate Luther Strange’s website for complete coverage.

Luther Strange and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli spent the day touring Alabama and discussing the key role that attorneys general play in enforcing state law as well as preserving the balance of power between the state and federal governments. Attorney General Cuccinelli has been a leader in fighting the health insurance mandate pushed through Congress last year by the Obama administration and he discussed this battle and other issues he sees on the horizon.

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From Business First:

The Suffolk University poll also found that Republican Rob Portman has opened up a 10-point lead over Democrat Lee Fisher (47-37 percent) in the Ohio race for U.S. Senate. Independent Michael Pryce has 4 percent, and 7 percent of respondents say they remain undecided. Another 4 percent said they would vote or lean towards someone not on the ballot.

In the other statewide races, the poll found:

• Republican Mike DeWine (44 percent) leading Democrat Richard Cordray (38 percent) in the attorney general’s race.

• Democrat Maryellen O’Shaughnessy (40 percent) ahead of Republican Jon Husted (33 percent) for secretary of state.

• Democrat Kevin Boyce (37 percent) leading Republican Josh Mandel (34 percent) for treasurer.

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From Kansas.com:

Former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker will be one of four co-chairs on state Sen. Derek Schmidt’s run for attorney general.

She joins former Kansas Bureau of Investigation director Larry Welch as one of the statewide chairs. The other two have not yet been announced.

“I have known Derek Schmidt since he was a valued member of my Senate staff in the early 1990s,” Kassebaum Baker said. “He put himself through law school while serving on my staff, and I saw up close his work ethic and determination.

Schmidt, from Independence and currently the Senate Republican Leader, is running against Attorney General Steve Six, a Democrat.

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From the Berkshire Eagle:

Republican James McKenna says he wants to replace Democrat Martha Coakley as attorney general to “restore public trust” in the office and not because she may be perceived as vulnerable having lost to Republican Scott Brown in the special election for U.S. Senate in January.

“We are not focusing on her past campaign,” McKenna said. “This is a completely different race.”

McKenna said Coakley should be voted out of office, in part, because she’s failed to deal with corruption within state government.

“We need to restore public trust in our elected officials,” he said. “As of Jan. 1 [if elected], we will have a public corruption task force that will go after Democrats, Republicans and Independents.”

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From the Florida Independent:

Relatively unknown as a candidate in the race to become Florida’s next Attorney General, Fort Lauderdale attorney Jim Lewis has announced he’s calling for Florida to take a step beyond simply decriminalizing marijuana for medical use, saying in press release Tuesday that he will seek the legalization of marijuana (in what is widely considered to be the state that ranks number one for highly potent, indoor-grown pot) should he be elected.

After announcing his candidacy last May, Lewis eventually dropped his longtime Republican party affiliation to run as an independent, following a career that included stints in the ’80s as assistant state’s attorney, special prosecutor for Gov. Bob Graham and assistant statewide prosecutor for the attorney general. He is also no stranger to running for office, having run unsuccessfully for mayor and city commissioner of Fort Lauderdale, Broward County circuit judge, public defender and state representative.

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From the News Virginian:

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is in the forefront of political leaders in Virginia who identify themselves with the tea-party movement.

Ahead of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention that begins today in Richmond, the Richmond Times-Dispatch spoke with the attorney general, a Republican, about the rise of the tea-party movement, its impact on the upcoming elections, and its future in the commonwealth and beyond.

In the most recent edition of his political newsletter, The Cuccinelli Compass, the attorney general encouraged his supporters to attend the convention, where he will take part in a forum on national policy tomorrow.

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From newstimes.com:

Republican attorney general candidate Martha Dean Thursday called the taking by eminent domain of a Brookfield quarry to make room for the Route 7 bypass an abuse of the power.

The state paid the owner of the quarry about $4 million in 2004, but was ordered by a judge last year to pay an additional $20 million after finding the state’s valuation of the property lacking.

Dean, who was speaking during a forum Thursday at La Cupola Ristorante in Bantam sponsored by the Litchfield Rotary Club, said the abuse of eminent domain is one of the unfriendly business practices in the state she hopes to end if elected next month.

“We have to get rid of burdensome regulations on businesses,” she said during the event.

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