# Contemporary national democratic politicians who have worked as prosecutors
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [January 22, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183 "2019-01-22T04:12:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/1 "2019-01-22T04:12:18Z")
I don’t know if this will be a long list, or a short one. but I like both Ted Leiu and Adam Schiff, and I know both worked as prosecutors. I’m wondering if prosecutors have more of a take no shit attitude.
Kamala Harris did too. Doug Jones. John Kerry.
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2019, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/2 "2019-01-22T06:32:54Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> I’m wondering if prosecutors have more of a take no shit attitude.
As a career it identifies them by definitive decisions with simple results: some bad people locked up. It shows they can argue a case convincingly.
Whether that transfers readily to political decisions is another matter: prosecutors aren’t much in the business of looking for compromises most parties feel reasonably OK about.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/3 "2019-01-22T13:50:30Z")
Amy Klobuchar was Hennepin County (Minneapolis etc.) Attorney.
Kirsten Gillibrand worked as a government lawyer under HUD Secretary Cuomo.
Jerry Brown served as California Attorney General.
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### Author:  [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2019, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/4 "2019-01-22T13:57:32Z")
[Eric Swalwell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Swalwell) worked as an Alameda County (CA) deputy district attorney.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2019, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/5 "2019-01-22T16:53:46Z")
Claire McCaskill was a prosecutor in Missouri before being elected to the Senate. Since she was defeated in 2018, it seems there’s an expiration date for that credential.
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### Author:  [@WreckingCrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WreckingCrew)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/6 "2019-01-22T18:17:30Z")
RI Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was both a federal prosecutor and the RI Attorney General.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2019, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/7 "2019-01-22T18:18:43Z")
Imagine if he ran and won? We’d have references everywhere to “The Whitehouse White House”.
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### Author:  [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/8 "2019-01-23T21:39:15Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> I don’t know if this will be a long list, or a short one. but I like both Ted Leiu and Adam Schiff, and I know both worked as prosecutors. I’m wondering if prosecutors have more of a take no shit attitude.
>
> Kamala Harris did too. Doug Jones. John Kerry.
It seems like a fairly common path to congress (for both parties) is to first serve as a state or federal prosecutor. Maybe it’s about making community connections. I don’t know. I guess it makes for a good campaign ad.
But, just skimming the Wikipedia entries for the 45 Democratic Senators:
Blumenthal - federal prosecutor (political)
Cortez Masto - Federal prosecutor
Harris - State prosecutor
Jones - federal prosecutor (both career and political)
Leahy - state prosecutor (elected)
Udall - federal prosecutor
Whitehouse - federal (political)
Also: Klobuchar was elected county attorney, which here would not be a “prosecutor” but their website is unclear.
So, it’s a decent list.
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### Author:  [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2019, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contemporary-national-democratic-politicians-who-have-worked-as-prosecutors/828183/9 "2019-01-25T01:33:10Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Imagine if he ran and won? We’d have references everywhere to “The Whitehouse White House”.
His campaign slogn could be: “He’s so good we don’t care that he’s from the smallest state in the union.,”