Newly arrived AG lectures national audience about 'states like mine'
Temporary Attorney General Stephen Cox, 48, who says he moved to Alaska a few years ago to work as a general counsel, but didn’t join the Alaska Bar Association until last spring, is now lecturing a national audience in the Washington Post about the issues facing “states like mine.”
He says that places like California and New York are filing lawsuits “that would give state courts in ideologically aligned jurisdictions the chance to control the economies of states like mine.”
In states like mine, you have to be around for more than a little while before passing yourself off as an expert on how Outsiders are ruining Alaska.
In states like mine, a successful attorney general is one who concentrates on Alaska issues and isn’t concerned with generating publicity for himself Outside and raising his profile in right-wing circles by inserting himself wherever possible.
But the temporary general hasn’t been here long enough to know the lay of the land. He claims to be fighting lawsuits aiming “to remake the nation in the image of progressive enclaves such as San Francisco and Portland, Oregon.”
“They reach into states like Alaska with their rules and regulations. They push misguided legal theories targeting ordinary Americans,” says Cox.
Speaking of misguided legal theories, Cox worries that evil Outside interests could go to court after the gas pipeline gets built and have it deemed a public nuisance or a contributor to climate change. “The project could be effectively destroyed,” he said.
This imaginary lawsuit at some imaginary date is at the bottom of the list of threats to the gas pipeline, but Cox hasn’t been here long enough to understand.
And when he sounds off about “states like mine,” I think he really meant to mention Texas, where he has a great deal more experience.
“Steve is a brilliant legal mind, a principled Texan, and has devoted his life to defending the Constitution and the rule of law. I have every confidence he will make an extraordinary U.S. Attorney for the men and women of East Texas,” Cruz said.
The principled Texan had served as the co-chair of the national finance committee for Cruz’s presidential campaign in 2016.
Cox has deep ties to Texas going back to his college days at Texas A&M, where he earned a bachelor of science degree. He earned a law degree from the University of Houston Law Center in 2006. Not long ago his LinkedIn page still listed him as the president of the Houston lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society. He is now a booster of the Alaska chapter of the Federalist Society.
Cox was a resident of Houston when he became the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District five years ago, and planned to move to Beaumont.
He was a member of the Texas and District of Columbia bar associations before signing up in Alaska six months ago. He has also spent years in Washington, D.C., but that’s not a state like mine.
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