The state attorney general in each of the 50 U.S. states and territories is the chief legal advisor to the state government and the state's chief law enforcement officer. In some states, the attorney general serves as the head of a state department of justice, with responsibilities similar to those of the United States Department of Justice.
The current party composition of the state Attorneys General are:
- 26 Democrats
- 24 Republicans
The composition for territories and districts are:
- 3 Democrats
- 1 Republican
- 1 Nonpartisan
- 1 New Progressive
Attorneys general are popularly elected in 43 states and in Guam. In Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Wyoming, as well as in the other territories, the attorney general is appointed by the governor, while the mayor makes the appointment in the District of Columbia. The attorneys general of Maine and of Tennessee are elected by the Maine Legislature and by the Tennessee Supreme Court respectively.
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Famous quotes containing the words state, attorney and/or general:
“I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour ... was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.”
—Truman Capote (1924–1984)
“He who never sacrificed a present to a future good or a personal to a general one can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors.”
—Olympia Brown (1835–1900)