Attorneys General Pam Bondi of Florida and Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia, right, during a Republican Attorneys General Association gathering at an exclusive resort in Coronado, Calif., in June.credit: New York Times
We all were under the assumption that state governors held the key to corruption in a particular state, and they do. But their high profile positions lead to much scrutiny which makes full time corruption a stressful way to make a living. Enter the state's Attorney Generals, the new focus of those looking for ways to influence policy; who come bearing all kinds of expensive gifts with expectations of the Attorney Generals giving a wink and nod to their requests regardless of legality or appropriateness. After all, states Attorney Generals interpret states laws and having a states AG in your pocket insures that laws will be interpreted with your interest in mind.
The low profile of states AG gives them some distance from their states governors policy. Witness the current Florida election with Rick Scott in a fight for his life while his AG Pam Bondi, who rules her own little corrupt universe, is cruising to reelection.
In a must read, The New York Times provides a thoroughly researched investigative piece about states Attorney Generals, under the influence. With a special section on my Florida state AG, Pam Bondi whose actions have been flying under the radar for too long.
Attorneys general are now the object of aggressive pursuit by lobbyists and lawyers who use campaign contributions, personal appeals at lavish corporate-sponsored conferences and other means to push them to drop investigations, change policies, negotiate favorable settlements or pressure federal regulators, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
A robust industry of lobbyists and lawyers has blossomed as attorneys general have joined to conduct multistate investigations and pushed into areas as diverse as securities fraud and Internet crimes. But unlike the lobbying rules covering other elected officials, there are few revolving-door restrictions or disclosure requirements governing state attorneys general, who serve as “the people’s lawyers” by protecting consumers and individual citizens.
A result is that the routine lobbying and deal-making occur largely out of view. But the extent of the cause and effect is laid bare in The Times’s review of more than 6,000 emails obtained through open records laws in more than two dozen states, interviews with dozens of participants in cases and attendance at several conferences where corporate representatives had easy access to attorneys general.
So now you can see why Rick Scott is
fighting to keep his e-mails from being reviewed. Open records laws are a bitch.
And The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that Florida's AG Pam Bondi may have broken the law in her meeting with lobbyists. Bondi in her defense, says her meeting with lobbyists do not influence her.