Should Minnesota AG Swanson be quaking in her Capitol alcove? We checked in with Mike Hatch, her predecessor and a prolific filer of consumer-protection actions. After spitting out a few expletives you can imagine for yourself, he noted that Minnesota has case law that would likely complicate things for the ALEC bill here. In a case called Mattson, the state Supreme Court ruled that there are certain core functions each state office must fulfill. “If there are prisoners in prisons, they must be fed,” he said. The treasurer must handle money, police must see to public safety and so on.

And that headline is an excerpted quote from a very well written MinnPost analysis of ALEC's latest mischief, an attempt to disenfranchise Attorneys General, and enslave them to legislative whim - where legislators are more easily lobbied and convinced than strongly independent public-spirited STATEWIDE ELECTED officials having constitutionally independent duties from activities and powers of the legislative branch.

Read the item: here.

ALEC is an idiot factory, and their quality control staff deserves credit for maintaining the tight consistency and uniformity of their manufactured products. E.g., Drazkowski; Kiffmeyer.

___________UPDATE___________
Under Pawlenty, he and the legislature screwed around with AG funding, but that is separate from trying to also take over decision making. What's left? Begger the budget, constrain the discretion? Who, besides ALEC, big oil and big tobacco wants a pack of neutered puppies as lawyers of the States? Budget game playing was offensive enough. Now this. When will these folks be curbed and brought to decency?

__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
I believe this is the Mattson case Hatch was referring to in the quoted headline text. Have a look.

__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Beth Hawkins in the MinnPost item writes of the Humphrey-Ciresi tobacco litigation, and how ALEC's latest adventure was recently discussed in an ALEC insiders meeting in tobacco state North Carolina where tobacco family Duke founded Duke University. Hawkins noted how the ALEC assault on the rule of law, if successful, would render impossible that kind of independent AG decision to participate in what initially was about healthcare providers claiming that big tobacco made their provision of coverage more costly.

But wait. There's more. A parallel ALEC assault on State Attorneys General; this link. ALEC not only wants to remove basic sue/participate decisions from Attorneys General nationwide, they also want to render it impossible to affilaite outside council, as Humphrey did with Mike Ciresi. That, with shrink the budget, is an ominous strategy we need to fear. Three ways to undermine public interest lawyering by the public's elected lawyers, elected independently, to serve the public interest.

____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
The settlement - the multi-billion dollar settlement - of the Humphrey-Ciresi suit against big tobacco was reached on May 8, 1998; just over fourteen years ago, and has the legislature as expected pis frittered away all the cash, or is some left? Any reader with an answer, please post a comment or send an email.

____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
To understand a propaganda method, use of hollow but evocative rhetoric without addressing actual criticisms, this link. Misstating that there is a war against ALEC, when the situation is a war against the public interest by ALEC and its pack of fellow travelers, and a defense by some public spirited and consumer-friendly organizations against ALEC's provocations and aggressiveness.

Of course that last paragraph is merely turning around the IBD item's approach, and is equally more heat than light. It's written to help explain the propaganda dimension of the IBD item, by example-counterexample.

__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Know who you are dealing with. Calling The Firm an ALEC fellow-traveler is fair reporting - if you can at all read:

this link

And who are the key members of that bloc of wonderful clients who "refer to" and rely upon SHB and its type of firm when "their (fill in the blank) is on the line"? Three guesses and the first two are wrong - one hint: