POLITICS: “Around the U.S., cross-party battles between governors and attorneys general are heating up in what some observers see as another sign of increasingly divisive national politics seeping into state offices.
Maine’s Republican Gov. Paul LePage sued state Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills earlier this month, accusing Ms. Mills of refusing to legally represent the executive branch when she has a political disagreement…
This latest batch of fighting comes against a backdrop of national partisanship that is also pitting state attorneys general against each other. The tension shows little signs of abating in the era of President Donald Trump as attorneys general in several states battle his policies.
‘It’s one of the consequences of the high partisanship that’s been created in the country politically,’ said Scott Harshbarger, a Democrat who served as Massachusetts’ attorney general in the 1990s. ‘Institutional understanding and comity, those boundaries are gone.’
Grant Woods, a Republican who served as Arizona’s attorney general in the ’90s, fears the rising partisanship makes it harder for attorneys general to work across party lines on major cases, such as the litigation that led to a massive settlement with tobacco companies two decades ago.”
-Jon Kamp, “Governors, Attorneys General Clash Amid Political Tensions,” The Wall Street Journal online, May 17, 2017 1:27pm