Litigation

On the day before the elections, some politics

By Carter Wood

The most competitive statewide race in New York is for attorney general between state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a Manhattan/Bronx Democrat, and Staten Island prosecutor Dan Donovan, the Republican. The Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal blog reports, "And the Next Mortal Threat to Wall Street Is....":

One candidate in Tuesday's election is a state senator who pledges to keep close tabs on Wall Street's bad apples - in other words, a successor to Andrew Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer, who used lawsuits against financial firms as a cudgel for financial reform. On the other side is a Staten Island district attorney who says New York's attorney general should "promote fair markets and not bring cases simply to get headlines."

In Connecticut, the candidates for attorney general to succeed Richard Blumenthal are Martha Dean, the Republican, and George Jepsen, a former legislator state Democratic Party chairman. The Day summarizes the race under this screaming headline, "Dean, Jepsen differ on issues in AG race":

[Jepsen] said he would have sued the tobacco companies for lying about the health dangers of smoking and for pitching their products to children, an action that is bringing billions to Connecticut. He said he supports Blumenthal's suit against the coal-burning plants in the Midwest, which curbed air pollution drifting to the state, as well as Blumenthal's actions against social networking sites to curb sexual predators.

Dean said she would not have supported those suits, and saw the tobacco suit as particularly egregious, saying it was a scheme concocted by trial lawyers and AGs around the country who brought "tobacco to its knees without a judge hearing the case."

• In "Power Player," Baltimore Magazine does a flattering profile of Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, getting people accustomed to the idea that he'll be a great governor after Martin O'Malley finishes his second term. Gansler's running unopposed this year for AG.

Full post as published by Point of Law on November 01, 2010 (boomark / email).