Ten month ago, Delaware media sources published a series of articles that detailed horrific conditions within the Delaware Psychiatric Center (DPC), a state institution that has long been an object of controversy.  Delaware AG Joseph “Beau” Biden immediately, and without any public acknowledgement, commenced a full investigation. 

Last week, Biden announced that his investigation had found “systemic violations” of the Delaware Mental Health Patient’s Bill of Rights.  He stated that the DPC had failed to prevent both physical and emotional abuse, failed to correctly use restraints and used “unjustifiable force.”   He announced a comprehensive agreement that includes an outside monitor and has not ruled out charges should the agreement not be fully implemented.  

The DPC is a state agency and as such a “client” of the Delaware AG’s office.   Lawyers assigned to the DPC report to Biden and they continue to represent the DPC on a wide variety of cases including a pending investigation of the U.S. Dept of Civil Rights.  Despite the protestations of the Governor and her staff (she is of the same political party as Biden), the AG proceeded with his investigation by not using those on his staff representing the DPC and instead used the staff of his Medicaid Fraud Division.  Until last week’s announcement of an agreement, this entire matter took place outside the aura of media scrutiny.

AG Biden handled this matter with the highest degree of professionalism.  He took on his own “client” and leaders of his own party regardless of the political implications in order to do the right thing for those vulnerable citizens who live at the DPC. 

There are many in our country who do not understand that the state AG is unlike any other lawyer in their state.   As its Preamble suggests, the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility simply do not apply to a state AG whose first duties are to enforce the law.  The common law legacy of state AG’s allows them to take on corruption and malfeasance of their own “client” agencies which are too often captured by outside forces.

I addressed this precise issue in remarks to the Spring NAAG Meeting.  You may see either the notes or the video at the website of the National Association of Attorneys General at http;//www.stateag.org.

New York Times - May 6, 2008 - Article on voter turnout in Indiana:

"....In many parts of the state, turnout was said to be near a record high. “I’ve seen people I thought had passed on to glory, and young folks that sit around and usually don’t care,” said Carlotta Blake-King, an elections judge at a polling place in Hammond."

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) may or may not be a good U.S.Senator (a matter no doubt firmly lodged in the eye of the beholder), but he certainly was wrong when he attacked AG's Mark Shurtleff (R-Ut) and Terry Goddard (D-Az) on their prosecutions of polygamous activities.  Speaking on a radio station, he stated that both AG's were "afraid" of prosecuting cases because of the "political clout" of supporters of polygamy.   Reid is now wisely scrambling to retract his irresponsible statements.  Because he is the Senate Majority Leader and is apparently important to getting the U.S. Dept. of Justice to get do its job of prosecuting federal crimes that are occuring within the polygamous community (estimated at 60,000 in the states of Utah and Az.), let's hope that everyone gets back together.

Sen. Reid isn't the first federal politician to not understand how prosecutors make decisions.   Deeply engrossed in a DC based culture of partisanship and cheap shots, it is hard for them to believe that there really are elected officials - like Shurtleff and Goddard - who call it straight.

I suggest that Sen. Reid spend sometime with his colleagues who have serious prosecutorial experience - Sens. Lieberman, Cornyn, Salazar, Pryor, Sessions, Kloblchar, Kerry and Leahy - before he next opines on the job of bringing tough cases.  If he does, we will all live in a better country.

Today's papers carry the story that while mortgage lenders acknowledge the on going disaster, they battle even the smalled attempt at regulation.   In response, former Iowa AAG Kathleen Keest, who not is a sr. policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, was quoted in the NYT as saying: "The Fed has accurately diagnosed that this is a brain tumor and responded by prescribing an asprin....in the industry, there is a fair amount of denial.   They just don't get it.  There is a calamity within the industry, and they don't have a new script yet, so they rely on the old script, which is that regulation will raise costs."

"What we now see is that the unintended consequences of deregulation are worse.   Their line is that regulation will cut back access to credit.  That's been their line ever since the small loan laws were adopted in the early 1900's."

A

Ut AG Mark Shurtleff's office is investigating allegations of impropriety by a former District Atty. While the former DA supports the review, he questions whether the AG's office will be impartial because the AG personally had politically supported someone else for the DA slot.   In these overly harsh times (and in the wake of the Gonzales administration where a few US Attys. were rewarded or penalized for how they handled politically sensitve matters), it is not irrational to question whether an AG's office can rise above prior political relationships to do what is right.

I cannot vouch for every AG in every state, but I can say that historially AG's have overwhelmingly done the right thing on these sorts of cases. Only a prosecutor can really oversee another prosecutor, and the alternatives to the AG's office - a special prosecutor, another DA or the feds - pose far greater problems for us all than the professionals in an AG office.

As for this case and the Utah AG?  My knowledge of Shurtleff and his staff leads me to conclude that there is no question that this one will be done by the book.

Todays's Wall Street Journal ran a front page story that begins:

"No nprofit hospitals, originally set up to serve the poor, have transformed themselves into profit machines. And as the money rolls in, the large tax breaks they receive are drawing fire.

Riding gains from investment portfolios and enjoying the pricing power that came from a decade of mergers, many nonprofit hospitals have seen earnings soar in recent years. The combined net income of the 50 largest nonprofit hospitals jumped nearly eight-fold to $4.27 billion between 2001 and 2006, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the American Hospital Directory."

It has been a year since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of states represented by their AG's to sue the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to get environmental protection.   The flatearthers who currently run the EPA are busy typing up resumes to return to private practice and corporate consulting, so 18 AG's filed yet another petition saying the obvious - that the EPA has done nothing - and once again asked the DC Circuit to order administrative action to regulare gas emissons including carbon dioxide from cars.

The AG's in this action are again led by Ma. AG Martha Coaxley who is joined by the AG's of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, plus representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the cities of New York and Baltimore, and several environmental organizations.

Join me in contemplating the simpicity of it all.

The Bush Admindistration ignores its staff and internal scientic conclusions and at the request of coprorate interests refuses to carry out the law.   Soverign states sue their own government and our highest court orders the EPA to carry out the law.   The EPA refuses.

If I were still teaching high school civics, could someone please draw me a lesson plan that is consistent with our laws and constitution?

Ma AG Martha Coakley has criticized a web site run by the state insurance department that is intended to inform state consumers about where to get the best rates for car insurance.   Coakley stated that the site is only 20 to 40 percent accurate. 

Coakley and consumer advocates have been very critical of the Bay State's move toward a deregulated system of auto insurance rates and the AG office and the Insurance Department, who the AG represents in litigation, have clashed repeatedly over the issue.

"The Web site as it is currently maintained is not only not helpful, it's misleading," Coakley said , and the Insurance Commissionsor responded that she would take Coakely's comments "very seriously" and would meet with her soon.

Today's dust up in another example of how an attorney general is able to take positions potentially adverse to agency "clients."

“The reaction of some of Mr. Clinton’s allies suggests that might have been a wise decision. “An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.  “Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week."

The New York Times, March 22, 2008.  Page 1. 

 Because I’ve been kicking around politics for the last 40 years, I am generally inured to the howls of partisans when things are going poorly for their candidate.   That being said,  I cannot pass on the remarks by James Carville, as quoted in the New York Times of March 22.

Carville is no stranger.  He kicked around politics for years as a political consultant who once retained had the tendency to pay only scant attention to the candidates who paid him.  Carville nonetheless hit a winning combination when his quirky personality and judgment, balanced nicely by the Rhodes Scholar and religious temperament of George Stephanopoulis and the quixotic campaign of Ross Perot, brought Bill Clinton to the White House.

Carville refused to join the White House and successfully cashed in on the pundit circuit.  By giving up the serious political work that can make the world better, he undertook a lucrative career as an outside the government cheerleader for then-President Clinton.  During this period, Carville demeaned anyone who criticized his patron and once famously characterized a clerical worker in Arkansas state government as “trailer trash” when she truthfully told her humiliating story of Governor Clinton’s inexcusable sexual advances.  

Carville is once again in full flight as de facto spokesperson for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.   While his remarks may pass as “just Carville being Carville”  among the largely secular political classes,  they are in reality deeply hurtful to millions of men and women of faith.   His Good Friday likening of Governor Richardson to Judas Iscariot arrogantly reveals the contempt he actually has for the people of our country that he allegedly loves. 

Carville’s continued presence in a public forum is no longer appropriate.   He should take his millions and disappear to commune with his like in some far off land where carnival hucksters go to amuse themselves.  Our First Amendment gives him the right to demean any religion he choses, but it does not mean that we have to listen to him.

This Sunday's Wilmington News-Journal ran an excellent article describing the increasing amount of money paid by Delaware taxpayers to outside lawfirms.   Over the last 30 years and over the bi-partisan objections of a number of Delaware AG's, Delaware Governors and Legislatures have funneled legal defense work away from public lawyers and into private law firms.

I am quoted in the story as saying that except in extraordinary circumstances, public legal work should be in the hands of public lawyers.  "It is less expensive, but I don't focus on the money.... Government attorneys have a better prespective, and understand their client.   They are more apt to realize they represent the public."

Delaware is clearly allowing private lawyers to represent the state on recurring defense matters.  Current Del. AG Jospeh "Beau" Biden is attempting to show the legislature that hiring a few more assistant attorneys general in key areas would both save the state money and improve the quality of legal services.   I wish him luck as he pushes back against a long Delaware history.

This is not to say that there are not times when private attorneys should be retained by state government for the purposes of both defense and civil prosecution.   I believe that those instances should be rare and on non-recurring matters where it does not make sense to build up internal AG expertise.  The painful bottom line is that Delaware simply retains private counsel far too often.  The state should listen to its Attorney General and change the practice.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article/AID=2008803090359

Last month, I made a few videos describing the basic operations of offices of state attorneys general and posted them on the Columbia Law School Website under the AG Library.  (http://www.stateag.org).   In investigating how to post them on other video sites, I came across an interview that I did about the tobacco cases on The Charlie Rose Show on February 16, 1999.

Shortly into the interview - that I scarcely remember - a much younger Jim Tierney says "I think that law suits are a lousy way to make public policy...."   Although my positions have changed on many things in the last decade, my views on that score remain the same.  "Policy ought to be made by elected officials," I said, and litigation should only be filed as a last resort. 

I believe that the tobacco cases were correct because they were a last resort.   Congress had not acted - and indeed has still not acted to regulate tobacco - and that the AG's at the time were courageous in their efforts to bring the truth in their fight to reduce youth smoking.  Smoking rates continue to fall and millions of lives have been saved. 

In the years since, I believe that the AG's continue to be correct to litigate national issues - again as a last resort - when the federal government fails in its duty to protect our citizens from whomever would commit fraud.

Our candidates for President talk about change.  If part of that change is to restore vital federal agencies - such as the FDA, the FTC, the CPSC and the DOJ - to their traditional roles as protectors of the American people, then the AG's will no longer be forced to carry out national litigation.  The AG's will be better able to focus on the problems they are facing at home - crime, immigration, charity regulation, prison reform, education and all of the rest.

I am optimistic that Sen. McCain - who carried the water for the AG's on tobacco - and either of the two Democratic candidates can bring about that change.  When they do, the AG's can reset their priorities back home.   If Washington does not change, then the state AG's will continue to do what they have to do and litigate national issues.

A defense lawyer named Brian Anderson has written an article in this week's Legal Times entitled, "When State Officials Attack."    http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1203866386444&pos=ataglance

Mr Anderson is certainly entitled to his views on state attorneys general and his perspective on the history of the office.  After all, the First Amendment protects all of us to rant which is how Bill O'Reilly makes his living.  (Come to think of it, Mr.O"Reilly should consider inviting Mr Anderson on his show as a guest.) 

The reason I am mentioning this silly article at all is that Mr Anderson purports to give advice to private parties as to how to defend against an investigation or lawsuit by an attorney general or group of attorneys general.   In my humble opinion, Anderson's advice borders on both legal and strategic malpractice.

I hope that no corporation takes his approach seriously (because it will be unnecessarily hurt) and that no attorney general or assistant attorney general hold the article against some of the very gifted lawyers in the O'Melveny firm.  Every family has a weird cousin.

You can read the article yourself in the Legal Times or in today's http://www.law.com

The U.S. Supreme Court went with the U.S. business community three times yesterday and, in doing so, continued its march toward preempting state laws.   In announcing one of the cases from the bench, Justice Antonin Scalia said the day's decisions made it clear that "we consider it part of our business" to sort out the balance between federal and state law.

There are many other places to debate whether this Court is indeed creating a "balance" (defined in one dictionary as "a state of equilibrium or parity characterized by cancellation of all forces by equal opposing forces") or whether it is, as Justice Ginsburg wrote yesterday, enacting a "radical curtailment" of state law remedies that Congress did not intend.

While this debate continues, the reality is that the Court is consistently rewriting federalism in a way that minimizes a state's ability to regulate any business other than a local shoe repair store. The reality is further that none of the candidates for President, and none of the leaders in Congress in either party, are talking about changing this trend.

Whether AG's like it or not, it is time for them and their allies to understand the full scope of the transformation.

Fl Attorney General Bill McCollum has met with state and national Islamic leaders and wisely agreed to establish an on-going Muslim community advisory group. McCollum met with representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the ACLU of Florida, leaders from Florida's Christian and Jewish communities and the Florida Muslim Bar Association.  McCollum's office will soon be offering educational programs on Islam and Muslims to his own staff and engaging the Muslim community in order to carry out his law enforcement priorities.

Rabbi Steven Jacobs, who took part in the meeting, nailed the issue when we said, "we ought to be obsessed with the truth, not distortions that lead to demonization and hatred of any group."

Other AG's should be looking to McCollum guidance on this issue and not just regarding Muslim-Americans.  His leadership reflects an understanding that the demographics of the United States are changing dramatically faster than the personnel in AG offices that remain overwhelmingly filled with caucasion baby boomers - who would do well to remember an anthem of their own youth, "The Times They Are a Changing,"

While Attorney General of Maine in the 1980's, my office prosecuted all homicides.  In doing so, we sentenced a number of individuals - mostly in their twenties - to a lifetime in prison.  These men are now approaching the age of 50 and, because of the rapid aging of imprisoned individuals, are now characterized in prison parlance as "geriatric." 

I wonder about them as they age.   These men must now be beginning to suffer from diabetes, congestive heart failure, cancer, high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  Some are likely to be confused and disoriented leaving them more likely to be victimized by other inmates.   For most the fragile family structures that might have existed years ago must now have all but disappeared.

My thoughts are not simply those of an aging prosecutor gone soft - although to some degree I would plead guilty to that charge - but of someone concerned as to the implications of the statistics that show that inmates 50 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. prison population.  The costs - both financial and moral - for the care of aging prisoners will soon be crashing down on the shoulders of state correctional and prosecutorial personnel.

Is anyone paying attention?

I have just finished a new book published by the National Association of Attorneys General entitled: "State Attorneys General Powers and Responsibilities."  It is edited by long time NAAG Counsel Emily Myers and by Former NAAG Exec Director Lynne Ross.  It is an excellent compendium of the entire sweep of duties facing all state attorneys general.  The book does not purport to engage in any of the debates that swirl around the office, but it is the best place to start.

Emily Myers also drafted five of the twenty three chapters and deserves special credit for bringing into existence this much needed revision of the First Edition that came out over twenty years ago.  Any serious student of the Office of State Attorney General should purchase this new copy directly from NAAG.

In order to effectively do his or her job, the state attorney general is to one degree or another independent from the Governor.   All but two states (Wy and Ak) and the District of Columbia have expressly rejected the federal model of an AG who is appointed by the Chief Executive and who can be removed without cause.  I have long believed that this independence, derived from our common law heritage, has served our country well by providing a positive check on executive power.

On Monday, January 28, 2008, I traveled to the District of Columbia and broke my cardinal rule of not telling a state that isn’t Maine how they should structure their law enforcement agencies.   I made the exception first because I was asked and second because the DC AG office continues to be beset with turnover at the top and uncertainty at the bottom.  The fastest way to fix the problem would be for them to give some statutory independence to the AG.  This simple step would decrease turnover, attract talent and financial resources and reduce the number of outside counsel.

Although I praised many of the former Attorneys General of the District of Columbia and much of the staff who currently work there, it is nonetheless clear to me that the DC government has a problem and they had better fix it.

Nicolas Bagley has written a very good op-ed in the Washington Post of January 25 that describes how the Bush Administration, key Democrats on the Hill and the banking community destroyed the ability of state government to protect its citizens from predatory fraud.   He has also written a longer article in Slate.

Here are the key provisions:

".....Enter the feds. Some of the biggest players in the secondary mortgage market are national banks, and the states' efforts to curb predatory lending clashed with banks' fervent desire to keep the market rolling. So the banks turned to the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The primary regulatory responsibility of the OCC is ensuring the safety and soundness of the national bank system, but almost its entire budget comes from fees it imposes on banks, which have the option of incorporating under state law. Put another way, the agency's funding depends on keeping the banks happy. Little surprise, then, that the OCC acted when the national banks asked it to preempt subprime-mortgage laws such as Georgia's, arguing that they conflicted with federal banking law.

Despite the banks' thin legal arguments, the OCC issued regulations in early 2004 nullifying the state laws as they applied to national banks. The agency reasoned in part that the states just got it wrong. As the then-comptroller explained in a 2003 speech: "We know that it's possible to deal effectively with predatory lending without putting impediments in the way of those who provide access to legitimate subprime credit."

With the state laws nullified, national banks and their subsidiaries were free to engage in the practices the states were hoping to stamp out. (Indeed, Georgia scuttled its law because it didn't want to give national banks a competitive advantage over its state institutions.) Facing pressure from subprime lenders and Wall Street, and left without a real chance of holding investors responsible for purchasing ill-advised loans, state legislatures gave up on trying to meaningfully expose downstream buyers to liability for facilitating predatory lending.

In retrospect, the OCC's decision looks wrongheaded. What the agency took to be shortsighted consumer protection laws laden with hidden costs turned out to be prescient market-corrective reforms. It's impossible to know for sure, but had the state laws been permitted to go into effect, investors would probably be sitting on fewer subprime loans that will never be repaid.

The feds ignored the basic principle that no level of government has a monopoly on good policy. As federal officials move to clean up the subprime mess, it's worth remembering that they helped to create it."

Before he became the newly chastened Governor of New York who has been bludgeoned into proposing a 21% pay increase for the hard working legislators of the Empire State, Eliot Spitzer was the hard charging Attorney General who twice failed by a whisper in being named Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.” 

I believe that one of Spitzer's most successful cases was his 2004 law suit against the drug company Glaxo Smith Kline. Spitzer's litigation alleged that Glaxo’s promotion of its drug Paxil for the treatment of childhood depression failed to disclose its own studies that suggested a possible link between the use of Paxil and suicide or, in the legalese of a 1998 internal Glaxo memo, “effectively manage the dissemination of these data in order to minimize any potential negative commercial impact.”  Although Glaxo’s CEO initially spluttered about having met the requirements of the FDA and that the company was within its First Amendment rights, within days and in the face of tanking stock price (evidently the Street did not reward companies that conceal data about how their product might cause teenagers to commit suicide), Glaxo ran up the white flag.   To its credit, the industry trade group, Pharma, began a voluntary process by which companies would be pushed to record all of its clinical data.

The federal agency who should have been watching Glaxo was the FDA, but from 2001 to 2004, the FDA was firmly in the hands of the deregulators. The General Counsel and de facto Chair of the FDA was a former tobacco and drug company litigator who never met an FDA regulation he didn’t hate.  Because the FDA did nothing, it was up to Eliot Spitzer to do the job.

All of this is the background to the welcome news that appeared in yesterday’s front page headline in the New York Times.  The FDA is “now requiring drug makers to study closely whether patients become suicidal during clinical trials.”  The story goes on to say “the seeds for the new federal effort were planted four years ago…” which by my count is 2004 – the year of Spitzer’s Paxil initiative.

Three belated cheers for the FDA.

And one huge “thank you” to Eliot Spitzer.

Armed with a 600 page report citing significant failures in a 600 student charter school in Cincinnati, the Harmony Community School, Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has filed a law suit to shut it down.   The list of school failures, many of which were compiled by the State Auditor, are horrific and have already landed the private owned but publicly funded school on an "Academic Emergency" list maintained by the Ohio Department of Education.   

Dann has now sued four underperforming charter schools all of whom are authorized to operate outside the laws controlling local Ohio education.

What makes Dann's suits important beyond the State of Ohio is that his shut down efforts are not based on representation of a state agency or Board but rather on his authority to regulate non-profit organizations.  In this case, Harmony Community School is owned by the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation.

As is true in many states, the State Board of Education is designed to be independent of any Governor or Attorney General.  In Ohio, eleven members are elected from their respective State Board districts and eight are appointed by the Governor over a period of years. The chairs of the education committees of the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate are ex officio members.  The purpose of such an arrangement is to take education "out of politics."

The Harmony School is saying that Dann is supplanting the Board and its licensing functions with his personal view of whether the school should continue to function.   Dann is saying that it is his job to make sure that Ohio non-profits are not failing in their purpose and, in doing so, subjecting kids to a lousy education.

The implications of Dann's broad use of his non-profit authority - especially in the face of non-action from the state agency that licensed the school - will resonate beyond Ohio.  Other charter schools, and other attorneys general, will be watching the outcome of the Ohio litigation.

Anyone interested in the on-going campaigns for state attorney general would be wise to check out Lou Jacobson's excellent analysis in today's Stateline.   You can find it at http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=272385

As the stock market tumbles and President Bush offers billions in military aid to the Saudis, proceeds from the swollen coffers of billionaires from around the world are being sent to American banks to bail them out for the greed that they exhibited in selling and purchasing of subprime mortgages.  Although I have said it many times before, this monumental disaster was all avoidable.  

State attorneys general, state banking officials and lending advocates (such as the Center for Responsible Lending and the AARP (whom I represent)) have been working on this issue at least since 2001.  The Bush Administration, aided and abetted by both political parties who were stuffing their pockets with huge campaign contributions from the offenders, reacted by affirmatively preempting efforts by attorneys general in their efforts to stop the fraud.  Business organizations automatically attacked attorneys general as not understanding the marketplace and even the Congressional Black Caucus turned their backs to the obvious fraud in their communities and pontificated that white lawyer prosecutors were not sensitive to the need to bring mortgage credit to people of color.

In case you haven’t checked, these are the same politicians who are wringing their hands and submitting legislation that will never pass

None of this had to be this way.   None of it.

Social Networking giant “MySpace,” has reached an agreement with forty-nine attorneys general wherein it they all agree that all parties – MySpace, law enforcement, child advocacy groups and families – must work together to protect the millions of minors who now use the largest social networking site.   During the two years of negotiations, and especially after the company came under adult leadership after it was purchased by News Corp, MySpace has implemented a large number of new authentication technologies that have already had a positive impact.  Under the leadership of NC AG Cooper and Ct. AG Blumenthal, MySpace has also agreed to form and fund an on going industry Task Force that will continue to seek new technological and policy protections.  The AG’s also urged parents to be more active in using My Space technologies to protect their kids.   As Pa.Tom Corbett wisely put it, “we don’t let our kids drive cars without careful education and testing, so why shouldn’t we do the same for the behavior of children on the internet.”

The AG’s did not sue MySpace nor have they threatened to do so (although as Ohio AG Marc Dann stated in front of the nodding AG’s present, nothing in this agreement permanently takes litigation is not off the table.  The AG’s repeatedly stated that the negotiations had at times been contentious and that disagreements continue.  That being said, in my view, this creative and cooperative approach to law enforcement will be the hallmark of future AG initiatives. The non-litigation approach is clearly a faster way to protect kids.

The AG’s and MySpace have asked other social networking sites – most specifically Facebook and Google – to sign today’s agreement.  It would be a very, very wise thing for these two companies to take this offer of cooperation seriously.

I continue to be pleased with the way that Attorney General Mukasey is digging himself out from the mess he inherited from the scandal ridden administration of his woeful predecessor Alberto Gonzales. Mukaskey seems to understand the symbolism of his actions (see my post of November 30) as he carefully unwinds the biggest messes.  

By removing a completely incompetent interim US Atty in Minnesota, he sent a message to the entire Department that competency is back in style.  By limiting the number of DOJ employees who talk to the White House (and in doing so returning to the Reno standard), he sent the message to the hacks in the Bush Administration that the days of politically tainted prosecutions are over.   He has also authorized a criminal investigation into the destruction of videotaped interrogations by the CIA.  And by acknowledging that he is scrutinizing how US Attys.give out contracts to monitor no-prosecution/deferred criminal settlements (in light of the no bid contract to former AG Ashcroft by the US Atty of NJ). he is telling his troops in the field that even in the last days of the Bush Administration, they cannot feather the nests of their pals.

Mukasey knows that he is in office for just one year and that the hard decisions on all of these issues (should there be this increase in monitoring in lieu of prosecution?) will be made by the next Administration.   That being said, he is not “just walking around to save on funeral expenses” (as my old friend in the Maine legislature, the late Don Hall of Sangerville, used to say.)  AG Mukaskey deserves our respect as he quietly works to restore our Department of Justice to its historic stature as a non-political law enforcement agency.

Should an attorney general – especially one whose duties require supervision of the electoral system and the prosecution of election fraud – ever serve as an officer of a political campaign?  Outside observers – editorial boards, academics, good government advocates, ethics experts – will undoubtedly say “Never!   Inherent conflict of interest!”  

Back here in the real world, it is perfectly normal for attorneys general, who are also leaders within their political party, to serve as officers in campaigns. While attorney general, I was the Maine Chair of three (losing) campaigns for President.. Today at least two fine attorneys general (McCollum in Florida and Miller in Iowa) are the Chair of Presidential campaigns in their states.  And in the greatest contested presidential election in our country’s history in 2000, my friend Bob Butterworth conducted himself with honor as both the Chair of the Gore campaign and, to the Democratic Party’s great consternation, as Attorney General of Florida when he disagreed with Gore on whether the veteran’s should be allowed extra time to have their votes counted.

Any thoughtful person would have to acknowledge the possibility of a problem, but the truth is that an attorney general also owes a responsibility to share with his constituents his or her views as to who the best person is to be President of the United States.