Chris Allen

Welcome to the fifth season of State AG Pulse. In this season, we’ll be digging into the weekly State AG News to bring you our insights on the impact of state attorneys general across a broad range of industry sectors. From technology to healthcare and telecommunications to consumer financial services, state attorneys general continue to wield extraordinary influence, not only in their own states, but also on the national stage. Now, on to this week’s episode.

Chris Allen

Hello everyone and welcome to this bonus episode of State AG Pulse. I am Chris Allen. I am a partner in Cozen O’Connor State AG Group, and I am thrilled today to be joined by my partner, Chuck Slemp, former Virginia Deputy AG. Hey, Chuck, how you doing?

Chuck Slemp

Hey, I am great and it’s good to be the bonus episode.

Chris Allen

I know, right? We’re like the extras that everybody didn’t know they wanted, but now they’ve got whether they wanted us or not.

Chuck Slemp

Just call it an encore, you save the best for last, you know, we could go on and on and on about all that.

Chris Allen

I like that. I like that. ⁓ And by the way, Chuck, I did not get a chance to tell you how much I enjoyed your episode on looking at Jason Miyares’ race this year. I guess now we know he’s running against former delegate Jones in the Virginia AG race, which is the only AG race in ,

Chuck Slemp

That’s right. So the only AG race this year between incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares and the challenger, Democrat, former delegate, and former AG in the DC office, Jay Jones. So it’s going to be an interesting year in Virginia, already shaping up to be, here in the Commonwealth. Even though that episode was geared toward the primary, there’s still some golden nuggets here, in advance of the general in November. So I encourage folks to go back and listen if you missed it.

 

Chris Allen

I wholeheartedly agree on that and also that episode was kind of the inspiration for what we’re gonna do today Chuck, which is… whenever I watch whether it’s the Super Bowl or the Final Four, what have you… the very next day, in fact, sometimes within like an hour of the game ending, ESPN will always send me the way too early look at [the] next season. Do you get those?

Chuck Slemp

Oh yeah, that’s right. Monday morning quarterbacking, a prediction, etcetera, etcetera. Hey, can we do that? Let’s do that with this, right? That’s basically what we’re doing.

Chris Allen

We’re going to do a way too early look at the  elections. And there are a couple of reasons why we’re going to do that, Chuck. I think, as you know, most AGs are elected in the off cycle elections. So we get  AG elections in , what makes it by far it’s basically our Super Bowl, right?

Chuck Slemp

Yeah, absolutely. And think about that.  plus races nationwide. This is a big deal if you follow attorneys general, if you are in the regulatory space and your work depends on who the attorneys general are in each state. This is our opportunity to find out what the future holds, what it’s going to potentially look like for enforcement and regulatory issues across the board. So this is a big deal. This is a big year and Chris, am I right that these kind of go in eight year cycles, even though you’ve got an election every four years, every two years, or Puerto Rico every six, right? You’ve got, there tend to be groups of incumbents that get elected, gosh, in eight year cycles, right? And a lot of that plays into, there are term limits in various states, right? So you’ve got certain states like…

Chris Allen

They’re limited out there. Nevada is term limited. It’s an interesting, it’s an important point, right? Because like you said, part of it is the eight year cycles and it’s an eight year midterm cycle. So we’re not looking at the presidential count. But what’s really been interesting, I’ve been practicing in this space for  years. I know you’ve been in this space for a long time as well. And what we’ve seen is with right after Barack Obama’s election, you had him elected in . And then two years later, you had what I’ll call the Tea Party wave, right? So you had  new AGs come in, predominantly Republicans, swinging a bunch of states that were formerly either purple or blue. And then eight years after that, you had Donald Trump’s midterm elections, and you had  new AGs come in.

Chuck Slemp

was a big Democrat wave that year. , the Republican wave of  new AGs and  a big Democrat wave.

Chris Allen

It’s going to be an interesting environment, right? Because on the one hand, you do have an incumbent Republican president. Traditionally, Republican presidents, at least their parties in the US Congress, don’t do very well in midterm elections. But at the same time, as you pointed out to me this morning, Democrats as a party have, I think it’s their lowest rating nationally ever. Is that right?

Chuck Slemp

Yes, something like that. Isn’t that an interesting statistic at this point.

Chris Allen

Yeah. And so, you look at, you look at just the general overall national trends. What we do know Chuck is we are already up to  new AGs at least. So yeah, we’re  months out and we got  new guys, guys or gals,  new people coming in, right?

Chuck Slemp

Yeah, and that’s because of either forced retirement or having to take another job because of term limits or because the grass is greener on the other side and AGs are moving on for other offices or just retirements in general. So already, clean slate of  open seats. Because you have that many new people being elected, coming in and filling this important office, the most important office in state government, the attorney general, it’s going to be a really, really big year. Now, what does that look like and who’s running? I guess that’s kind of where we’re going to go next.

Chris Allen

Sure. So let’s do that. Running for governor, starting right off the bat, you have Phil Weiser from Colorado, who I think is generally seen as the Dean of Antitrust.

Chuck Slemp

He’s been there eight years, two terms. He’s limited, term limited. And so he’s running for governor, thus opening up that seat.

Chris Allen

And then going over to Georgia, you have Chris Carr, also running for governor, a stalwart among Republicans out there. I think this is his, Chuck, do you know this is a second or third term that he’s been…

Chuck Slemp

This is his second term, if I’m not mistaken.

Chris Allen

I think you’re right about that. Looking out to Nevada, hot off the presses, Aaron Ford, two term, as we said earlier, term limited, Democrat out there, just announced today his gubernatorial campaign.

Chuck Slemp

And of course, we’re recording this before the podcast is aired, you know, the announcement was just made. as we’re moving forward to see who’s going to fill that seat, what’s that going to look like? Will be quite interesting. We know it is an open seat.

Chris Allen

You know, this is where I like having you on the podcast with me, Chuck, as you keep me honest. We are recording this at  Eastern on July ^th, to timestamp this. If I make a slip up like that again, just remember that I was recording this at the end of July and not in August already. Y’all might know something else that we don’t know yet. So let’s look over heading over now to the middle of the country in Oklahoma. Gentner Drummond finishing up his first term, but he already got his win at the Supreme Court. So I guess he’s decided that the governor’s office is the next thing that he’s got to look forward to.

Chuck Slemp

That’s right. Open seat, he’s announced he’s running for governor. He did win in ‘ for the first time with like %, % of the vote or something like that. So that’s an interesting race they’re coming. And then of course, South Carolina’s Attorney General Wilson. Alan has been there for, gosh, since . So a long time. There were no term limits in South Carolina, but he has announced that he is running for governor as well. That announcement recently.

 

 

Chris Allen

I remember Wilson was one of that  Tea Party wave. His dad, course, Joe Wilson was in the House of Representatives and then he took over the AG’s office there. Yeah. So this is interesting. So those are the governors. Again, that’s Weiser in Colorado, Carr in Georgia, Ford in Nevada, Drummond in Oklahoma, Wilson in South Carolina. As you mentioned, Chuck, there’s also some people looking at the US Senate. We have our good friend, Steve Marshall down there in Alabama.

Chuck Slemp

He’s been there since . There are term limits there, so you can only do two consecutive terms. So Marshall is running for the U.S. Senate. And then we’ve got AG Paxton in Texas, who’s also running for Senate…

Chris Allen

…against incumbent John Cornyn, who is also running for reelection. So you have a, probably one of the biggest time primaries at least among the Republicans in Texas.

Chuck Slemp

There are no term limits in Texas, which is interesting. But he has jumped in and made the decision to run, that being AG Paxton, for U.S. Senate.

Chris Allen

Speaking of no term limits, Chuck, like I said I’ve been doing this  years. Do you want to know how many attorneys general of Texas there have been in  years that I’ve been doing this? Counting Paxton?

Chuck Slemp

Well, Paxton’s been there since ’ so gosh, what…

Chris Allen

Two, two. Current governor Greg Abbott, who was AG, and now Ken Paxton. And I think that’s, that’s what’s really going to be interesting, and we’ll get into this in a little bit, is the Texas governor, the Texas AG seat is kind of like the AG seat in Massachusetts or in California. It doesn’t open up very often. And so the fact that Paxton is running has opened a floodgate of candidates who have already announced their intentions. Again,  months out to replace general Paxton, down there in the Lone Star state.

Chuck Slemp

Well running for Congress is a theme here now, Senate being the past two, but we’ve got another attorney general who is known to this circuit because he’s been around for a while as well. And that is South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley now he’s on his second time in office in South Dakota. There are two consecutive terms. It’s term limited, but he’s come back after taking a, what, four-year reprieve. So what is Jackley in? His th year as attorney general if you add them all up.

Chris Allen

If you add them all up, think that’s right. I don’t remember if it was North Dakota or South Dakota that used to be on two-year terms, but yeah, mean, Jackley is, again, left office, came back into office, and now he’s going for Congress.

Chuck Slemp

Other AGs that are term limited, we’ve got folks who have decided, or not made an announcement to run for higher office. Yost in Ohio is one that comes to mind. He’s term limited, has served two terms, and as of now is not seeking higher office. We’ve got Neronha in Rhode Island as well.

Chris Allen

That’s right, who I believe is, there’s a rumor he’s looking at the Lieutenant Governor’s slot. Dave Yost, I believe, was also looking at the Governor’s slot, but he withdrew once the primary there. I’m blanking on the guy’s name. Vivek Ramaswamy, Vivek Ramaswamy, that’s right, when he declared. And then lastly, we have Dana Nessel up in Michigan.

We can talk about Michigan in a second because there’s several states here that I think we could consider battlegrounds. And I believe, I think Dana Nessel’s is gonna be one of them. But we can get into that in just a second.

Chuck Slemp

Before we do, here’s a recent development that just happened. Governor Evers of Wisconsin has announced that he will not seek a third term. And so the governor is not term limited, having served two terms and Attorney General Josh Caul, who’s been there since , last race, he won %-ish of the vote. He is eligible to run for reelect. With the governor’s position being vacated, does the AG run for reelect? Does he run for governor? That’s to be determined, I think.

Chris Allen

Yeah, I think that’s a really good call out. So again, by the time this airs, maybe y’all know something that we don’t. We talked about the  AGs that are up for election and we can talk about the rest of those in a second. But in addition to the AGs, we do have a couple of governors who appoint AGs that are term limited and those would be Alaska and Wyoming. Chuck, I hear that Treg Taylor may be considering running for governor for Alaska. I don’t know if that’s official yet.

Chuck Slemp

That is the rumor that is not official yet as of the recording date today. That’s right. And then we have in Wyoming, we have a recent new AG.

Chris Allen

That’s right, a brand new AG, Keith Kautz, who only took his office, again, we’re reporting in July, so he’s been there about four weeks now, maybe fewer.

Chuck Slemp

I think it was July  that he began his new term to replace the outgoing attorney general after the appointment by Governor Gordon.

Chris Allen

That’s right, Bridget Hill, former AG moved up to the Supreme Court there. So happy three week anniversary, General Kautz. But General Gordon is term limited, so we’re not sure what’s going to happen with that seat out there. It’s possible that the governor’s successor might keep Kautz’s on, but otherwise, we may be looking at a new AG in Wyoming. Moving up to the other part of the country, another beautiful state, Maine, General Frey of Maine, who is elected by the legislature. What’s going on there, Chuck?

Chuck Slemp

So the legislature elects the Attorney General in Maine and Aaron Frey has served as attorney general for the allotted, this will be eight years. It’s a two year term, if I’m not mistaken. And so this is his last two year term that he’s eligible for. So the state legislature will be electing a new attorney general, I believe. I’m not certain if that is at the end of, I think it’s the end of ‘ when that will happen.

Chris Allen

I think that’s right. Usually the legislature sits in December and they elect whatever officers they elect there, which I know does include the AG. So by New Year’s Day, we’ll probably know who the new AG of Maine is. And then you…

Chuck

So that’s already a lot of change already. That’s guaranteed change right?

Chris Allen

So we have, in addition to that, a whole host of other races, know,  in total. In  races, you have incumbent AGs that don’t yet have competitors. We talked about what we guaranteed, but we’re also going to have, there’s a lot of chances now for people to keep, to throw their hat in the ring and to run against some of these incumbents. And it’s going to be, like I said, I think it’s going to be a very interesting environment to see what people decide to do on both sides.

Chuck Slemp

Absolutely. Well, there’s still a lot to be determined here and we are still very, very early, but kind of going down through some of those states. Arizona, Kris Mayes is running for reelection, we presume. Elected the first time in ‘. Arkansas, Tim Griffin, he’s running in, he was first elected in ‘ as well. Do you want to just go down through this list?

Chris Allen

Sure, why not? Got Rob Bonta in California and William Tong up in Connecticut. Kathy Jennings out in Delaware. James Uthmeier is an interesting one in Florida.

Chuck Slemp

That’s right. So General Uthmeier was appointed when AG Moody, now Senator Moody, was appointed to the U.S. Senate. And so Uthmeier is running for his own term. He was appointed in  and that race is open next year. So that should be an interesting run.

Chris Allen

Yeah, Uthmeier of course is a Republican appointed by Governor DeSantis. Moving on to Idaho, you have AG Labrador up there, Kwame Raul in Illinois. Iowa, Brenna Byrd, there were rumors she was going to go after the governor’s seat, but from what I understand, she’s decided to sit back this time and do another term. She was elected in , right Chuck?

Chuck Slemp

That’s right. And we’ve got Kris Kobach in Kansas who’s running for re-elect again elected in ‘. So there’s a bunch of folks who were new in ‘. We’ve got another one in Maryland’s AG, Anthony Brown. He’s up for re-elect, was first elected in ‘, as well as Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell. She was elected in ‘ for the first time.

Chris Allen

Yep. And then of course you got Keith Ellison up in Minnesota. You have Mike Hilgers out in Nebraska. He was another  guy. Raul Torrez out in New Mexico. Tish James in New York. Drew Wrigley in North Dakota. Charity Clark in Vermont who, General Clark, poor General Clark is the only AG left who has to run every two years. So General Clark is going to be, she’s at least up again in  and then the poor thing is going to have to turn around and run again in .

Chuck Slemp

Those two-year terms, could we be as lucky as Puerto Rico with the six-year term?

Chris Allen

I guess we didn’t talk about Puerto Rico. I don’t think they’re up this time, but…

Chuck Slemp

I think you’re right. Did we talk about DC? So the District….

Chris Allen

We did not talk about DC, that’s a good point. I apologize, General Schwalb, but go ahead.

Chuck Slemp

Last but not least, definitely not least, the District of Columbia does have an elected attorney general. General Schwalb was elected for the first time in ‘. He is eligible for re-elect and as far as we know, is running for re-elect in ‘. And I think that unless we’ve missed somebody, that is all of the incumbents that we would presume are running for re-elect. We’ve already talked about Wisconsin and the possibility there. As of now, we would put that in the running for re-elect category. But last, last but not least here on the change of AG offices across the country, one that we may see this year as well, obviously Virginia is the only election, but we do have an election that will be relevant to an attorney general and that is New Jersey. New Jersey’s governor appoints the attorney general and we’ve got a gubernatorial election in New Jersey this year and in Virginia.

And so depending on what may happen there and how that falls, we may potentially have a new attorney general for the state of New Jersey as well.

Chris Allen

You know, I’m going to call that cheating because we said this was an all too early prediction of . Although I suppose the successor will be sworn in in . So I will give you that one Chuck. You squeezed that one in right under the wire. Well, and again, okay, let me cheat a little bit. Cause I did say that we’re not going to do predictions, but it’s interesting when I look at this list, you have I think what are two undisputed battleground states coming up in . That would be Arizona again, where General Mayes won her election for three years ago, excuse me now, by the narrowest of margin. And then that was wrapped up in litigation challenging the results for months afterwards. And then you have the open seat in Nevada. And Nevada, think has emerged as another significant swing state. So out of anything that’s gonna be called a toss-up, I think that’s where we’d probably be looking the most, right Chuck?

Chuck Slemp

Yeah, and you know, there are other states that you got to look to that were the battleground states during the presidential election that had very narrow margins in the election of the attorney general four years ago. And I’m thinking specifically to like Wisconsin. Kansas was a narrow margin. And so there are some races that we’re going to be watching very, very closely.

Chris Allen

Well, and Dana Nessel’s seat in Michigan.

Chuck Slemp

That’s right. That’s right. Michigan as well.

Chris Allen

I think, I think what will be interesting to me also is again, going into this environment, I don’t know what to think about… Colorado traditionally was a purple state, swung back and forth. Phil Weiser, the current incumbent running for governor is a Democrat, but you had John Suthers in there. You had Cynthia Coffman, both Republicans not too long ago. I think Colorado, most people will say has trended bluish, certainly purple.

But again, another comment you made to me earlier that I want to give you credit for is the candidates really matter, right? So you never know what’s going to happen in a state like Colorado, a state like Ohio, which I think along with Florida has trended red. In Florida, you have… General Uthmeier has the advantage of being an incumbent. Ohio, though, is an open seat. So is Colorado. So it’s going to be really interesting to see Rich Cordray, who basically set up the CFPB, was a Democrat in Ohio, AG not very long ago.

Yeah. so, yeah, I mean, it’s again, way too early to be making forecasts, but we I think we can expect some interesting races coming out of those states, especially because in a lot of these, we already know you’ve got candidates in some of these states. I think in Colorado, we’re up to six already, five or six who are running. And that’s just on the Democrat side to replace General Weiser. In Arizona? Yeah, for sure. In Arizona, you already have four declared. In Texas, like I said before, you only get your shot like once every, you know,  years. You already have five candidates there, three Republicans, two Democrats. This is going to be a long election cycle and it’s going to be an interesting election cycle.

Chuck Slemp

Well, that’s true. And then I guess to put a fine point on it, candidates matter, but the power of incumbency is strong, especially at the attorney general office. And so we will see how that translates here. What is a watershed year where we have not just the majority of attorneys general up for re-elect or for open seats for election, we’ve got a sizable number that are already going to be open and we know we’re going to have a lot of change. I have a feeling over the course of the next year, there’ll be a lot of AG news to talk about, especially as we look at these elections and the races and who’s up and what their background is, back story, lots more predictions to come. Yeah.

Chris Allen

Yeah, I think that’s a great way to wrap this up. My only final thought to add to that would be, we already know  of these seats are going to change. We don’t know who’s going to be there. We don’t know how the parties are going to change. But I think what you and I, Chuck, have seen over the long time we’ve been doing this is, the AGs really matter. They matter whether you’re talking about what is happening at the federal level.

You got the Democrats lining up against the Trump administration’s policies, the Republicans generally lining up for. The skirmishing has been largely in the courts at this point. I don’t think that’s going to change for the rest of the Trump administration. Who sits in those seats really matters in terms of who’s going to provide legal coverage and air cover for what’s happening at the federal level on just about every topic you can imagine, from tariffs to taxes to immigration.

Chuck Slemp

Absolutely.

Chris Allen

And the last thing, you know, is it matters for the business environment, not just at the national level, certainly those are important issues, but also, you know, the state AGs enforce the consumer protection laws, state AGs enforce antitrust laws, state AGs enforce data privacy laws

Chuck Slemp

Privacy.

Chris Allen

State AGs enforce in many states False Claims Acts. So you know, again, who that person Is sitting there, and we know there is going to be  new of them, really is going to matter for every single company in this country.

Well, I really appreciate talking to you and as always, I learn a lot every single time I talk to you Chuck. So thanks so much for your time today.

Chuck Slemp

Same here, I’ve enjoyed it. And thanks to the listeners for being with us. Join us again next time.

Chris Allen

On behalf of the state AG Pulse, I am Chris Allen.

Chuck Slemp

I’m Chuck Slemp. And we will talk to you all next time. Take care.

Chris Allen

You have been listening to State AG Pulse brought to you by Cozen O’Connor’s State AG Group and the State AG Report. Please leave us a five star rating and of course tune in again in two weeks for our next episode. Thank you so much for joining us.