Because of term limits, Attorney General Bill Schuette (R-Michigan) can’t run for the office again, so he’s got a couple more years left (he has made it past a recall effort in 2011 and will probably not be unseated by the current effort).
It’s no secret that Schuette wants to be governor. Pundits believe it’s affecting his decisions in the Flint water case: if Gov. Rick Snyder (R-Michigan) goes to jail, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley gets a promotion and the opportunity to be perceived as an incumbent in the gubernatorial election next year.
I’m not interested in discussing whether or not Calley would be legally considered an incumbent in that scenario. Nor am I at the moment interested in trying to predict Schuette’s strategy. What I’m thinking about today is: who should be the next attorney general?
That election is still more than a year away, but the nominations might be decided in a few months. I have no idea who the Republicans will run. The Democrats, on the other hand, might try to observe the principle of a “balanced ticket.” Even if you live in Michigan, you’re forgiven for not knowing what that is.
Jack Lessenberry explained it thus in a Metro Times column from May:
But one of the stupider things Michigan Democrats do is insist on an "ethnically balanced ticket."
That means, unofficially but practically, that at least one of the four major nominees — governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and attorney general — has to be black, and at least one a woman.
… This has often caused the party to throw away races it might otherwise have won. The worst recent example came in 2006, when Scott Bowen, a charismatic former judge from the Grand Rapids area, campaigned hard for the nomination for attorney general.
There's every reason to believe he could have defeated Mike Cox, the Republican incumbent. But Democrats wanted a black face on the ticket, so they instead nominated Amos Williams, a little-known Detroit attorney, to whom they gave little support and less money. He lost badly, but tokenism had been served.
Three years ago, they did much the same, nominating black lawyer Godfrey Dillard for secretary of state, then leaving his candidacy out there to wither and die. Dillard, who had really wanted to run for attorney general but was shunted into secretary of state instead, reportedly complained bitterly in internal party councils about tokenism, but kept quiet in public like a good boy.
Like Williams before him, Dillard lost in a landslide and hasn't been seen since. Next year the ticket may feature at least two strong women; Gretchen Whitmer, now the front-running candidate for governor, and Jocelyn Benson, the former Wayne State law school dean, who badly wants to be secretary of state.
It might happen that the ideal Democratic ticket for next year consists of four white women. And that’s fine if they are qualified for the offices they’re running for and they are sincerely looking out for the people, not big corporations.
In his column, Lessenberry goes on to suggest attorney Dana Nessel leave the managing partnership of her firm to run for attorney general. I hope she takes him up on that suggestion, and that the Michigan Democrats nominate her and support her candidacy.
Nessel has already proven herself in court against Schuette, who wastes taxpayer money on legal fights the taxpayer would prefer he drop. And who better to follow the homophobic Schuette than the lawyer who laid the groundwork for the Supreme Court to declare gay marriage is constitutionally protected?
She might well be the first attorney general since Frank Kelley to actually want to do the job and look out for Michigan's citizens. [Granholm (D) was attorney general before being governor.]
She [Nessel] is gay, and has a lovely wife and twin sons by a previous relationship. They are about as normal and attractive a family as you'll find anywhere, and are really a poster family for the values Democrats, and most Americans, say they believe in.