I had always assumed the State’s Attorney General’s staff wrote the legalize for members of the legislature.
I now know how its really done. Very interesting and informative thread.
IANAL but I think that would not happen because the Attorney General is part of the executive branch and not the legislative branch.
I can’t give you a cite, either, but we know that the local “medical” marijuana law was written by a lobbyist who also now owns a “dispensary”. How do I know? He told us at a public meeting.
legislative vs executive… or "A non-legislative Attorney Generals Department - an oxymoron ? "… you might thing that the Attorney general must be purely legislative ?
legislative in this case means “of the legislator” … which implies “a part of the team at the house”… Leader, secretary, treasurer, minister, whip, party organizer… party politics operatives… people who will speak about morality, economics and their own parties godlike status in one sentence.
Executive means “an independent expert, independent so they can focus on certain topics , they have their own team of staff, their own office, and merely reports back to the legilsators” …
That means that the Attorney Generals department tries to remain “dry” and independent…
Dry means they don’t judge ALL the merits of the bill , they don’t judge whether compulsory health insurance is a good political move, for example. Ok you might assume they stay dry on topics such as health care.
They have been getting “wet” (with tears?) in regard to domestic violence issues… such as saying “victims give up on being witnesses at the courts when they feel humiliated during interrogation”. The idea is that you must have experts on the legal process to comment on what happens in court rooms… its their area to get “wet”, (slightly more) whollistic, “legislative” in.
Isilder, do you live in a Parliamentary state, as opposed to a US state?
True on that specific matter.
Since unlike the Judiciary the AG can provide advisory opinion, there will be chambers where it is common during the hearings process to ask the AG office to put on the record their opinion on a bill.
In the case of so-called “Administration Bills” i.e. legislation that is an executive initiative, what should happen is the Legal Staff at the relevant department (e.g. Dept. of Revenue for a Tax Bill) will do the dirty work, get it checked out and maybe polished for a flourish by their peers at at the Governor’s office, and then the Gov will send it it to the legislator(s) chosen to be the formal sponsor(s), who’ll file it. Though dismayingly often it seems they’ll just make sure it’s properly spaced and using the right cite format and lob it to the legislature. Again, the original idea may have been brainstormed in-house, brought in as a loose notion by citizens, or pitched by lobbying groups.
In the US (which this thread is about), attorneys general are purely executive officers and serve no legislative function and in fact are generally prohibited from participating in the legislative process - except the creation of subsequent administrative law within their assigned sphere of influence.
In some states, attorneys general may play a narrow advisory role which would typically be limited to offering an opinion on the government’s authority to enact proposed legislation, or the interplay between proposed legislation and existing legislation.