In 2016, Indiana Republicans held their state convention in Fort Wayne, Ind., rather than their usual site in Indianapolis. That’s one link in a chain of events that led to the state attorney general being temporarily disbarred.
The Indiana GOP nominates attorney general candidates at its convention, rather than holding a primary. Four years ago, Curtis Hill was not the establishment pick for the job, but as district attorney of Elkhart County, he enjoyed support from social conservatives in the northern part of the state, notably from a Tea Party activist named Monica Boyer. Convention delegates don't always stick around for the downballot races, but since Fort Wayne is two hours north of Indianapolis, more members of Hill’s geographic base stuck around long enough to help him win the nomination.
That was tantamount to victory in the mostly red state. In fact, Hill led the ticket in 2016, taking more votes than Donald Trump or Eric Holcomb, the winning candidate for governor.
In May, the state supreme court suspended Hill’s law license for 30 days, at the end of a two-year investigation regarding accusations from four women that Hill had groped them at a party in 2018. Hill denied that he had touched them inappropriately, but the court was convinced he had committed battery. He had long resisted calls from leading Republicans, including Holcomb, that he step down.
On the surface, Hill’s story seems to have little in common with other state attorneys general who have gotten into political and legal trouble recently. Jason Ravnsborg, the attorney general of South Dakota, is facing an investigation into a Sept. 12 accident in which he fatally struck a pedestrian with his car. On Aug. 25, Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson resigned, following publication of a story about his having sent hundreds of sometimes suggestive texts to a younger state employee.
None of the three men had received the level of scrutiny that a competitive primary election might have brought. Like Hill, Ravnsborg was nominated at a state party convention. He had never previously held elective office and finished fifth in the 2014 U.S. Senate primary, taking less than 3 percent of the vote. Clarkson was a politically connected attorney when he was appointed to the job by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, but had no prior experience in government or elective office.
Although state attorneys general have emerged as political and policy powerhouses — routinely suing the president and acting as de facto national regulators in areas such as pharmaceuticals and finance — they don’t receive nearly the same scrutiny as candidates for governor, arguably their only peers at the state level.
“AGs continue to fly under the radar,” says Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University. “It’s a more high-profile position, and yet the overall vetting has perhaps not quite caught up to the importance of the position.”
There are some clear patterns involved with the half-dozen or so other AGs who have gotten into political or legal trouble in recent years. They mostly come from one-party states and they almost always run into problems, if they're going to, during their first terms, when inexperience tends to show. Many AGs are serving in their first statewide positions and some have never previously been elected to anything.
“You get some people in there that have some skeletons that are not discovered until it all blows up,” Nolette says.
Their Problems Aren’t Unique
Relatively few AGs ever get into serious trouble, but being in power can breed a kind of arrogance that can lead to testing or even flouting legal and behavioral barriers. In that regard, AGs aren’t unique among politicians. Hill and Clarkson are certainly not alone among elected officials in facing allegations of sexual harassment.
Ravnsborg is not even the first South Dakota politician to be involved in a fatal car accident. In 2004, Congressman Bill Janklow, a former attorney general and governor, was convicted of manslaughter following the death of a motorcyclist Janklow struck after running through a stop sign.
That same year, Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager was arrested for drunk driving. Her son, Josh Kaul, is the state’s current attorney general. Kaul defeated Attorney General Brad Schimel in 2018, who had won the office in 2014 despite having a 1990 drunk driving offense on his record.
Ravnsborg had been cited for speeding eight times, according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, as well as other driving infractions. During his time in office, he’s also posted pictures on Facebook that were clearly taken from behind the wheel.
A lack of vetting — including the decline in state-level media coverage — means a history of problems might not be found out until and unless an AG has trouble in office. Once in power, the idea that a state’s chief law enforcement officer may have broken the law naturally draws considerable attention.
The heightened profile of contemporary AGs means infractions can attract national media notice, as has been the case with Ravnsborg. “This sort of thing has occurred even though AGs are more in the limelight now,” says Nolette, author of Federalism on Trial, a book about the rising influence of state AGs. “When things like this blow up, in some ways naturally they get more attention.”
Sticking It Out
Sometimes AGs know immediately there’s no chance they can weather the storm. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman stepped down in 2018, within hours of The New Yorker’s online publication of a story detailing allegations from four women that he’d physically abused them.
But often attorneys general, like other politicians, refuse to recognize that it’s time to go, even when they’re clearly in trouble. In 2015, Pennsylvania’s supreme court stripped Attorney General Kathleen Kane of her law license. Kane had been charged with multiple offenses, including perjury, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. It wasn’t until her conviction the following year, however, that Kane resigned.
Kane had not been the Democratic Party’s first choice for the job. At least, not all of the party. Former Congressman Patrick Murphy enjoyed much of the party establishment’s support, but he’d angered former President Bill Clinton by endorsing Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential race. Kane’s husband had been a big donor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Bill Clinton campaigned heavily for Kane, helping propel the little-known assistant Lackawanna County district attorney into the job.
Sometimes, AGs can survive scandal. In 2015, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was indicted in a securities fraud case. Paxton has always maintained his innocence, saying the charges were politically motivated. Although the indictment is five years old, the case has never gone to trial. Paxton won re-election in 2018 by a bare majority.
Last year, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring admitted he’d worn blackface as an undergraduate. At the time, Gov. Ralph Northam was facing pressure to step down amidst his own blackface scandal, including a call for his resignation from Herring. With all three of Virginia’s statewide elected officials facing scandal — two women accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault — Democrats were leary of letting the post of governor fall to the state House speaker, at that time Republican Kirk Cox. All three have stayed on the job.
On Sept. 2, Herring informed other Democrats that he’ll seek a third term as AG next year, rather than running for governor.
Hill, the Indiana AG, also sought another term this year. “Over these past two years, I have been the subject of relentless attacks and smears, the likes of which few have endured,” Hill said in his taped address to this year’s GOP state convention, which was held virtually. “Like President Trump, I have faced accusations and investigations designed to destroy me politically.”
Playing the victim card wasn’t enough. Rather than renominate a damaged candidate, Indiana Republicans decided it was safer to go with someone they knew and felt they could trust. Hill lost the nomination to Todd Rokita, a former Indiana secretary of state and member of Congress.
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