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AG Stands for Aspiring Governor
3:36PM ON
07/03/2008
BY
Ariel Werner
The honorable Matt Jerzyk has a post to this effect over at RIFuture, as does Sir Ian McKellen Donnis at N4N, but I feel the need to reiterate: what’s up with the AG? While 42 other attorneys general signed on to support the Free Flow of Information Act, which would create a qualified federal shield law for reporters, Patrick Lynch did not. Lynch, who on June 19 was elected president of the National Association of Attorneys General, does justice (no pun intended) to that organization’s alias: the National Association of Aspiring Governors.
I think a lot of Rhode Islanders take for granted an important lil’ Rhody anomaly: most states have district attorneys and attorneys general, these being two distinct positions and offices. We’re small enough that the two positions are lumped into one office. Our attorneys general, therefore, spend the majority of their time and energy prosecuting criminals and upholding severe criminal justice policies rather than representing the larger interests of all our citizens.
In March, I was privileged to attend the 11th Annual Liman Public Interest Colloquium at the Yale Law School. In keeping with the topic of the conference—”Liman at the Local Level: Public Interest Advocacy and American Federalism”—we had the opportunity to hear from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Ohio Solicitor General William Marshall, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and James Tierney, Director of the National State Attorneys General Program. These four fellows have used their positions as state and city attorneys to compensate for the failings, negligence, and misguided decisions of the federal government and judiciary.
Blumenthal, for example, in his five terms as Connecticut AG since 1990, has reshaped the very role of the attorney general, aggressively pursuing consumer protections, environmental stewardship, labor rights, public health safeguards, and personal privacy rights. He led a national fight against Big Tobacco to prevent deceptive marketing aimed at children, he has struggled to improve health care coverage and reduce pharmaceutical costs, he has contested unfair utility price changes, and he does not hesitate to sue the federal government when it fails to protect the people of Connecticut.
Dennis Herrera, the San Francisco City Attorney, has worked to monitor the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s plans to pursue aerial spraying to eradicate crop moths, intervened as the nation’s only municipality in seeking to strike down the Bush Administration’s federal abortion ban, pursued an investigation and lawsuit on behalf of the San Francisco school district to uncover a nationwide scam to defraud the federal E-Rate program and, most notably, filed the first government litigation in American history to challenge the constitutionality of marriage laws that discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. His bold move paved the way for the CA Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in support of same-sex marriages.
You’d be hard-pressed to find examples of such national or, even, statewide leadership on the CV of our own Patrick Lynch. Well, except for his early and enthusiastic endorsement of Barack Obama. Edward Fitzpatrick of the Projo explored Lynch’s decision to forgo signing onto the Free Flow of Information Act. He explains:
Yesterday spokesman Michael J. Healey said Lynch will not sign the letter in part because it deals with federal legislation. “Whether it’s enacted or not will have no bearing or effect on the state law of Rhode Island, the courts of Rhode Island or our office’s functioning,” he said.
Also, Healey said, “Unlike all but two other states, the Rhode Island attorney general also functions as district attorney,” so Rhode Island prosecutors bring many more criminal matters before grand juries than most attorneys general.
So, admittedly, the RI Office of the AG is very little concerned with the effects of the federal government’s decisions on the citizens of Rhode Island, no matter how intrusive or unjust they may be.
Patrick Lynch is very much using his position as a stepping stone to the Governor’s office, and I hope we’ll all hold him accountable for this and other decisions (or lack thereof) when his name actually appears on the ballot.
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