Amanda Marcotte’s latest piece in Salon linked here highlights a series of racially insensitive emails from Republican Attorney General Association chair and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. The piece details a set of emails uncovered from Rutledge’s time at the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS). After Rutledge’s departure from DHS, there was a note added to her file accusing her of “gross misconduct” and instructing that she not be rehired.

One of the more shocking emails released includes racially insensitive commentary about people seeking DHS services. In another, she refers to someone as a “dwarf.” Excerpt here:

In that email, Rutledge tells a joke about a “friend” who accidentally rear-ended a van and was surprised “when she discovered the other driver was a dwarf.” When the man says, “I am not happy,” Rutledge writes, her friend replied, “Well then, which one are you?”

As Sean Rankin, DAGA Executive Director, points out, this kind of insensitive behavior from an Attorney General is alarming, “The attorney general of the state is supposed to be the people’s lawyer,” Rankin said. He said it was hard to “even conceive of writing or forwarding” an email “clearly attacking the people you’re meant to serve.”

This is just a small window into what we know about Attorney General Rutledge and the tough re-election she faces in November.