Letitia James Makes Famous Enemies. Will That Win Her an Election?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/05/nyregion/ny-letitia-james-attorney-general.html

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Over her four years as New York attorney general, Letitia James has built a formidable national profile through her office’s inquiries into former President Donald J. Trump, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the National Rifle Association.

That prominence has also made Ms. James, a Democrat, a polarizing figure. Though many of her liberal supporters celebrated her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, the former president has attacked her throughout her tenure, with his supporters following suit.

Her efforts to dissolve the N.R.A. were condemned by right-wing media. And after her office’s report on Mr. Cuomo led to his resignation, he denounced her as an opportunist, an accusation that stuck with some Democrats after Ms. James made a short-lived run for governor.

Now as Ms. James runs for re-election in a challenging electoral environment for Democrats, her Republican opponent, Michael Henry, has seized on that criticism to try to unseat her.

Mr. Henry, a commercial litigator who has never held elected office, has argued that Ms. James has used her office as a political cudgel rather than prioritizing the needs of New Yorkers. Like other Republicans, he has focused on crime and the cost of living and has cast the election as a referendum on Democratic leadership.

In an interview, Mr. Henry cited Ms. James’s six-week campaign for governor as evidence that she was part of a line of attorneys general in New York who sought to use the office as a springboard to the governor’s mansion, including Mr. Cuomo and his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer.

“I’m here to represent the taxpayers of the state of New York and not my own personal ambitions,” Mr. Henry said. “And I think that’s something that she’s lost sight of.”

Ms. James has for years repudiated suggestions that any of her work as attorney general has been politically motivated. In an interview after a rally in Harlem, she said that ignoring evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Trump or the N.R.A. would have been a “dereliction of my duty.”

“We’ve been very active,” Ms. James said. “And I make no apologies, because this is who I am, and this is what I do.”

Ms. James holds significant advantages heading into Tuesday’s election. Relying to some extent on the war chest she began building during her run for governor, Ms. James entered October with millions of dollars more than Mr. Henry, according to the latest campaign filings, and still had nearly $1 million to spend in the race’s final stretch, compared with Mr. Henry’s roughly $100,000.

Ms. James is also a Democrat in a state where no Republican has been elected attorney general since 1994, and she is far more recognizable to New York voters than her opponent. A Siena College poll released last month found that 91 percent of those surveyed were unfamiliar with Mr. Henry. That survey also found Ms. James with an 11 percentage point advantage in the race.

Still, recent polls in the governor’s race have suggested that the political environment in New York may be open for a Republican to be competitive against a Democratic incumbent in a statewide election. At a rally in Harlem on Wednesday, Ms. James acknowledged that she and others on the ballot, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, were in tighter contests than expected.

“I need you,” Ms. James said to dozens of supporters. “Because this race right now is getting very, very close.”

Kenneth Sherrill, a professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College, said voters’ preference for governor and in congressional races would heavily sway the attorney general’s race, which has received comparatively little attention.

That effect, he added, would be even more significant for Mr. Henry given his lack of name recognition. “I don’t think that he’s going to have any pull on his own,” Professor Sherrill said.

Mr. Henry said that he had been hoping to make a broad case to voters in a televised debate on NY1. But Ms. James declined to participate, leaving the attorney general’s race as the only statewide contest on the ballot with no televised debate, a move that Mr. Henry called anti-democratic.

Asked why Ms. James declined to debate, her campaign manager, Yvette Buckner, said in a statement that Mr. Henry was a “post-truth Republican” and that Ms. James “opted not to appear next to him as he spewed lies.”

Following the strategy of most state Republicans, Mr. Henry has focused heavily on crime throughout the campaign, with a particular emphasis on New York’s bail laws.

In 2019, Democrats made changes to try to stop people from being held in jail for minor offenses because they could not afford bail. More serious offenses, including violent crimes, are still eligible for bail under the law, which has been amended twice after Republicans and moderate Democrats blamed it for a rise in crime that started during the pandemic.

Data shows no clear evidence that the bail laws are responsible for the increase. Rearrest rates — one indicator of whether the law had contributed to crime rates — have stayed steady. But as certain crimes have risen, the overall number of those charged, released and then rearrested on a separate crime has risen.

Mr. Henry wants to see the bail reform law repealed. In its place, he said, he would push the Legislature to craft a more narrow statute focused on keeping nonviolent first offenders who cannot afford bail out of jail. He also wants to repeal the Less Is More Act, which keeps people from being jailed for minor or technical parole violations.

Ms. James voiced strong support for eliminating cash bail in her 2018 campaign. But as public safety has become a growing concern among voters, she has expressed openness to re-examining New York’s bail laws.

Speaking in Harlem, she did not address specific changes, saying only that further tweaks need to be grounded in data and keep to the laws’ original aims. “I do not want to return to the bad days where we criminalize poverty,” she said.

Ms. James also said she would work to get more funding to pretrial services and for the treatment of the mentally ill and to address a shortage of corrections, parole and probation officers.

And, as Ms. Hochul has in recent weeks, Ms. James emphasized her role in cracking down on ghost guns, which are untraceable by design, and in defending the state’s gun laws, including a measure — currently facing several court challenges — to restrict the public carrying of firearms.

Mr. Henry said he supported “common-sense red flag laws” to address gun violence. He said that he would evaluate the case against the state’s gun law on its merits but believed parts of the law were overly burdensome, including its training and background-check requirements for people applying for concealed carry permits.

Mr. Henry also said that he would re-evaluate Ms. James’s lawsuit against Mr. Trump and his business “and make an independent assessment of whether it’s in the best interest of the taxpayer to move forward.”

He framed that approach as part of a larger promise to restore professionalism to an office that he believed had been swayed by politics. As an example, Mr. Henry, who is Catholic, said that while he was personally opposed to abortion, he would uphold the state’s abortion laws as written.

“My job will be to make sure that I uphold the laws that are on the books,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

Mr. Henry also hopes to beef up the attorney general’s Public Integrity Bureau, which investigates corruption in state government. He said that he would loosen what he said was a pattern of overregulation on businesses that was hurting the state economy, mostly by cutting down on bureaucracy in the attorney general’s office.

Ms. James said that she wanted to address economic concerns by prioritizing antitrust investigations and consumer protections. She said she would also focus on addressing a soaring number of evictions in New York City that comes amid inflation and skyrocketing rents.

Luis Ferré-Sadurní contributed reporting.