New York Needs a New Attorney General

The New York Sun is happy to endorse Saritha Komatireddy for attorney general of New York. The former prosecutor is running on both the Republican and Conservative lines. We understand that many think it’s a vain quest, given that a recent poll finds Ms. Komatireddy 13 points behind Attorney General Letitia James, who is standing for a third term. Then again, too, if a newspaper can’t back a dark horse what glory is there left in the trade.More to the point is the fact that in the polls Ms. Komatireddy has been moving in the right direction. In the latest poll she has narrowed the gap with General James by something like five points over the prior month’s survey, and if she keeps in future debates, formal or otherwise, the kind of showing she made in the last one, she could be in a strong position as November emerges over the horizon.Just Wednesday Newsweek was out with an encouraging report. It reckons that the Democrats are entering the final weeks of the midterms with at least some “favorable tailwinds.” Newsweek sees voters souring on President Trump. We’re not so sure. In any event, though, it reckons that the Democrats may not be matching in New York the Democratic party’s national momentum. It notes that in 2024 the state experienced the nation’s “largest rightward shift.”Two recent surveys, Newsweek notes, “have produced underwhelming results for Democrats in New York.” The polls are “raising questions about whether the ‘blue wave’ will manifest itself in the Empire State.” While Democrats’ success in expanding “their lead on the national generic ballot,” the result has failed to translate “into gains in New York, with recent polls showing Democrats up between 11 points and 13 points in the state.We don’t want to make too much of such reports, but neither do we want to ignore them — particularly when the GOP hands up a candidate like Ms. Komatireddy. As a former federal prosecutor at the Eastern District of New York, her work experience encompassed, per her campaign, “some of the nation’s most high-profile cases,” bearing on “international terrorism, cybercrime, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, fraud,” and corruption.She has also served as the chief of staff for the Drug Enforcement Administration. All of which experience, one imagines, would serve her in good stead in the post of the Empire State’s top law enforcement. Ms. Komatireddy offers as well the prospect of an ethical and cultural reset for the state attorney general’s office, which has in recent years been riven by what these columns have called General James’s “Ahab-like obsession with President Trump.” General James first ran on a vow, in 2018, to “fight back” against “that man in the White House.” She said Mr. Trump “should be charged with obstructing justice” and added, sans evidence, that he had engaged in the “pattern and practice of money laundering.” An ex-prosecutor in her office, Daniel Wiesenfeld, argues that lawyers under General James were ordered to pursue Mr. Trump “even after a year-long probe found no wrongdoing,” per the New York Post.Feature, too, Thursday’s debate between the candidates. Asked whether the state should regulate prediction markets, a pending legal dispute involving two companies, Ms. Komatireddy said “I have to look at the facts and the law.” The response from New York’s top law enforcer helps underline why the state needs a new attorney general. “You don’t have to look at the facts and the law,” General James sneered. “All you have to do is study what they do.”

New York Needs a New Attorney General

New York Needs a New Attorney General

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