Washington DC – Today, Pluribus News reported on the important Attorney General races across the county this year that are drawing national attention, including Pennsylvania and North Carolina. As Pluribus News’ Reid Wilson writes, “The most competitive races for attorney generalships in the United States this year are playing out across two of the same states that will decide the next occupant of the White House, and which party controls the next Congress.”

As Democratic Attorneys General Association President Sean Rankin shared with Pluribus News, “We’ve seen attorneys general become de facto national players as the gridlock in Congress has continued. More decisions are being made at the state level,’ Rankin said in an interview. Because they advise the legislative branch, serve in the executive branch and argue before the judicial branch, he said, ‘they truly move across the chessboard.’”

The article continues, “Observers say the office of the attorney general has become increasingly important in recent years as a platform to influence national policy, largely by bringing legal challenges against legislation, executive orders or actions of the opposite party’s presidents.”

“Attorneys general ‘have always been important — they’re typically the chief law enforcement officer in a state, so they have long been asked to make tough calls on everything from criminal prosecutions to litigation over constitutional issues. What’s shifted over the 20-plus years I’ve been covering them is that — on both sides — they have taken up a more aggressively partisan role,’ said Louis Jacobson, a nonpartisan election handicapper who rates attorneys general races for Sabato’s Crystal Ball.”

“‘It used to be that bipartisan groups of AGs would band together to do things like sue the tobacco companies,’ Jacobson said. Now, ‘whether your state has a Republican AG or a Democratic AG will go a long way to determining whether your state weighs in with the red states on abortion, election, or civil rights lawsuits, and on which side of the issue…’”

Read the full story here. 

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