AG Watch

According to Jerome Carr’s motion to submit his amicus curiae brief in Massachusetts v. EPA, which the Supreme Court will hear on November 29th, Mr. Carr tried to contact the Massachusetts AG’s office in order to get help submitting his brief, but was redirected to the Sierra Club’s attorneys. The truth trumps any joke AG Watch could make.

The AEI Federalism Project will host a panel discussion of Massachusetts v. EPA on November 21, from 2-4 p.m. Registration is open. You may register with us directly.

On Bloomberg.com, Jonathan D. Salant provides a must-read look at the nationwide political fallout in AG races after Eliot Spitzer’s attorney generalship.

Why are AG races receiving such attention? Mr. Salant writes, “Business groups say overly aggressive state law-enforcement officials are driving up costs, making it harder to compete and forcing companies to shed jobs.” Mr. Salant also quotes John Engler, former governor of Michigan, saying, “Eliot Spitzer has done more to raise costs than most legislation passed by legislatures across the country.”

That is the second most distressing item in the column. Most distressing, of course, is the use of the word “Spitzerism,” which makes both philologists and rule-of-law types shudder.

Once again, a cadre of AGs and tobacco makers have leagued up to decide national policy. They don’t want cigarette brands to have sweet and/or alluring names because, they insist, sweet and/or alluring names target children. The settlement is only between R.J. Reynolds and 39 AGs at present, but we can guess that others will soon climb aboard.

At the present pace, NAAG settlement agreements will soon run everything from international trade bargains to national financial policy to MLB commissioner duties. Why waste time passing legislation through national democratic institutions when parochial litigacrats can decide everything at a whim?