From left, New York City Bar Association president Roger Juan Maldonado; New York State Attorney General candidates Leecia Eve, Letitia James, Sean Patrick Maloney and Zephyr Teachout; and Susan DeSantis, deputy editor-in-chief of the New York Law Journal before the Sept. 4 debate at the city bar. (Photo: David Handschuh/NYLJ)

Three of the four Democrats running to be New York's next attorney general said on Wednesday that, if they could convince the state Legislature to pass one bill when they take office in January, it would be legislation giving them more power to investigate and prosecute public corruption.

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, widely considered a front-runner for the position, said she's even spoke to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and members of the state Senate about the proposal, which would give the state's top law enforcement officer unprecedented power to probe public officials for violations of the state's ethics laws.

“I've already begun discussions with the speaker as well as the state Senate,” James said. “The No. 1 bill is to give the Office of Attorney General original jurisdiction to investigate corruption in the state of New York.”

That was the answer to one of several questions asked of the four Democratic hopefuls at Tuesday night's candidate forum in Manhattan at the New York City Bar Association, which sponsored the event with the New York Law Journal.

James is competing against Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Fordham Law Professor Zephyr Teachout and Leecia Eve, a lobbyist for Verizon.

Watch the full debate below:

Maloney and Teachout also said the first bill they would like to see the Legislature pass in January would grant more power to the attorney general to address the state's ongoing corruption problem.  Teachout, who literally wrote a book on corruption, was less optimistic that would happen immediately.

“The New York State attorney general needs to be on the front lines of cleaning up corruption and, if I could wave a wand and make the legislature comfortable with a prosecutor, investigator coming at it, I would also push for giving original jurisdiction of investigating and prosecuting corruption,” Teachout said.

The candidate with a different answer was Eve, a former Cuomo administration official who also served as counsel to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the U.S. Senate. 

She does not disagree with the other three candidates that the state attorney general should have broader authority to investigate and prosecute public corruption. But one bill would come first for her, she said.

“I would ask the state Legislature, given the assault on women's rights and reproductive rights, I would ask them to immediately codify Roe v. Wade,” Eve said, referring to the Reproductive Health Act. The bill would ensure that state law matches the decision in Roe. Current abortion law in New York state is not as strong as the landmark Supreme Court decision.

Each candidate shares the same position on abortion rights. In fact, the candidates share either the same, or similar, positions on most issues.

But there is one that has them split down the middle, and it could be critical for the next state attorney general: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

James and Teachout both want to abolish the federal immigration agency. James said ICE has acted inappropriately by separating immigrant families this year but is also affecting litigation in state courts.

“I also believe that immigrants who are afraid of going to court right now, it's having a chilling effect on the administration of justice,” James said.

Teachout said she wants the state to bolster its immigration protections by becoming a ”sanctuary state,” where local and state law enforcement do not cooperate with federal immigration officers. A handful of municipalities across the state, including New York City, already have such policies.

“We are not where California is, and I would certainly push for that,” Teachout said. California has such a sanctuary state policy.

New York City's history is one of the reasons Eve differs with Teachout and James on the issue. She said, for her, ICE goes beyond the immigration policies of President Donald Trump. She said calls to abolish ICE demonstrate a “lack of understanding” of the agency's work and the federal government's power to authorize its existence.

“One of the key components of ICE is not immigration, it's preventing terrorism,” Eve said. The agency was created after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks. If ICE is somehow abolished, Eve said, the same policies would still exist, just under a different name.

“Guess what? The president of the United States is still here. The policy is the same,” Eve said.

Maloney holds the same position, though both candidates disagree with the way the Trump administration has used the agency to aggressively go after undocumented immigrants. Maloney said he would rather the policies shift than the agency's existence and called the alternative proposal “irresponsible.”

“I'm deeply uncomfortable with a glib answer that we should abolish ICE,” Maloney said. “I think it's irresponsible for someone running for the chief legal officer of the state.”

The debate was between the four Democrats running in next month's statewide primary, but Keith Wofford, the Republican running for attorney general, also showed up to hear from the candidates. He said the candidates did not get to the heart of issues that voters care about, like job creation.

He was especially unimpressed by the candidates' positions on ICE, calling a proposal to eliminate the agency “sophomoric.”

“It's sort of a sophomoric proposal and, as was commented by one of the candidates, you're not going to get rid of the people controlling the entry into our country of contraband, of illegal substances, protecting us form terrorism,” Wofford said. “All you're going to do, you're going to have to name it something else.”

The statewide primary is scheduled for next Thursday, Sept. 13.