Editor’s note: Voters in the Nov. 5 general election have a choice between two skilled politicians in attorney general candidates Greg Abbott, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, and Kirk Watson, a former Austin mayor. Abbott, now a partner in the Austin office of Bracewell & Patterson, and Watson, now a partner in Austin’s Watson, Bishop, London & Galow, hold different views on how to lead the Texas Office of the Attorney General. Both sat down for a question and answer session on Sept. 30 in Dallas with Texas Lawyer senior reporter John Council to discuss how they would direct the office, whether they would take a position in a federal habeas corpus writ that conflicts with the district attorney who tried it and whether they would lead a prosecution of a Texas corporate giant such as Enron Corp. The discussion appears below, edited for length and style.
Texas Lawyer: A perennial problem at the attorney general’s office has been the low salaries of attorneys who work there. How would you attract quality lawyers to work with the office, and would you push for a pay raise?
Kirk Watson: First of all, I think when you create an atmosphere and an environment where young lawyers feel like they have an opportunity to learn, to get to try cases, to get to be involved, and [to be] surrounded by good trial lawyers, you’re able to attract good lawyers. . . . [Attorney] General [John] Cornyn . . . has worked to provide additional training for lawyers so that there is an ongoing educational process that, I think, also attracts young lawyers and others that want to work in the areas of litigation and representing the state. I would continue to look at programs like he has utilized, where he pays some additional salary to some people based upon different requirements and different approaches that will help increase morale. . . . I think going into this budget cycle is going to be very difficult for anyone to call for increases in salaries. Once there, I’ll look and see if there are places where you could make changes where some of those salaries might be shifted over to others, but as we go into a session with this sort of budget crisis, I’m not anticipating that anybody’s going to be asking for increased pay right off the bat.
Greg Abbott: Sure. On the Texas Supreme Court, we faced this very problem. And we were able to consistently attract the best lawyers in the state because of the opportunity we offer them to be involved in the decision-making process of the most important legal decisions of the state. And that’ll be part of my process as attorney general � to have an aggressive and active recruiting program helping lawyers, young and older, in the state understand the opportunity that it provides for them and for their legal career to work in the attorney general’s office. They have the ability to come in and have hands-on active experience in handling some of the most important cases of the whole state of Texas. [The position] provid[es] them that unique exposure to hands-on experience and [that] allow[s] them to develop an expertise in a very meaningful substantive area of the law. That, for one, hopefully will be a draw to many of the good lawyers in the state. Secondly, I do want to follow up on a plan established by Cornyn, and that is to effectively use the recruiter’s office to run a very aggressive and active recruiting program to ensure that we are getting the best and brightest. Part of my job as attorney general will be to help lawyers understand that one way in which they can participate in the shaping of the society in which they live is by giving back to that state by serving in the attorney general’s office, and we will have programs where they can work for two years or four years. The last thing concerns the pay. There is a great disparity of pay between what lawyers make at some of the largest law firms in the state and what they get paid at the attorney general’s office. I will work with the Legislature to try to help them understand that it is the state’s interests that are at stake . . . [and] that these lawyers are working . . . to ensure that the best job is being done for the state of Texas. We need to ensure that we attract and retain the best lawyers in the state of Texas. One way of working toward that goal will be seeking a pay raise for the lawyers on the staff of the Office of Attorney General. And I will be seeking that pay raise.
TL: If elected to attorney general, would you continue the investigation started by Cornyn into how five prominent Texas lawyers acquired the right to represent the state in the tobacco litigation?
Abbott: I think it’s the obligation of the next attorney general to look at every legal matter that the current attorney general is looking at. And I will take to that issue the same approach that I take to every issue in the attorney general’s office, and that is that I will give it a full, fair and complete legal analysis and [a] factual analysis and base my decisions accordingly.
Watson: The next attorney general’s going to inherit a number of ongoing investigations, and my approach to all of the investigations will be the same: to make a determination about what evidence [and] what information we already have, what evidence and what information needs to be obtained and then move forward in an independent way on all of these inherited investigations and bring them to appropriate and timely conclusions.
CONFESSIONS AND CRIMINALS
TL: Cornyn has been criticized by district attorneys for confessing error in the death penalty case of Victor Saldano. Can you envision yourself taking a position in a federal habeas corpus writ that conflicts with the district attorney who tried it?
Watson: I support the death penalty, and I believe that as a supporter of the death penalty, it is important that we assure that the death penalty works. . . . And what that means is to make sure that it works in a way that is just and that is fair. Race being one of the issues in the determination of a death penalty is not an appropriate matter. And as the attorney general, I feel like the appropriate role of the attorney general is to call attention to that the way Cornyn did. . . . [S]o I can envision that kind of situation as a supporter of the death penalty and as someone who wants to make sure it works and is done in a way that is just and fair. Having said that, I also want to be very clear that � probably because I have been a locally elected official and have been in situations where the state tries to take a step into what we’re doing and play a role � I really believe in local control, and I support the . . . elected prosecutors, the district and county attorneys across the state, because they are elected to do that job. I believe the . . . attorney general ought to be there not to supplant them but to supplement and help them when called upon. But there is a specific role for the attorney general to play in certain types of death penalty matters, and in those instances, I think there’s a special obligation.
Abbott: I’m proud to say that in this race, the endorsements that my campaign has received from district attorneys around the state, both Republican and Democrat, is unparalleled. And the reason why I’ve received such unparalleled support and endorsements from district attorneys is because of the commitment that the district attorneys know that I have to working with them to achieve justice in this state, and I’ve made it clear to them that I respect the job they do. I know that the district attorneys in this state are highly qualified to achieve justice in their local communities, and I’m going to be working with them to help them achieve their job. And I do not anticipate confessing error.
TL: The attorney general’s office involvement in criminal law issues seems to have grown exponentially over the past 10 years. Do you advocate increasing the office’s involvement in criminal law issues or scaling it back?
Abbott: There are four divisions in the attorney general’s office. One of those four divisions is the criminal justice division. In the criminal justice division, there are approximately 25 active prosecutors and a total of about 90 lawyers. It does play a leading role in the attorney general’s office. I anticipate it continuing to play a leading role in the AG’s office. The AG has very active involvement in the process of ensuring the safety and security of all Texans. Some easy examples of some things that I will be doing as attorney general to ensure just that is working with the Internet Crime Bureau to ensure that our children and our seniors are protected against being preyed upon on the Internet [and] working with the Crime Victims Compensation Fund to ensure that victims of crime are going to be receiving the money that they are entitled to, that it will not be encroached upon and that it will be forwarded to them as swiftly as possible. I will be actively using the approximate 25 prosecutors in the Prosecutorial Assistance Division to ensure that the state of Texas is doing whatever it can to aggressively prosecute [criminals] . . . across the state of Texas. . . . In addition to that, I have proposed creating a new subdivision. There are 10 subdivisions in the criminal justice division, and I proposed adding a new subdivision in the criminal justice division that’s focused on corporate fraud. . . . And so, yeah, I do envision moving forward, continuing to actively use the criminal justice division to ensure the safety and security of all Texans.
Watson: Well, I think you see a continued evolution where there is a need for certain types of activities from the attorney general’s office. For example . . . 10 years ago, there wasn’t the issue of how we protect our children when it comes to someone preying upon them. If your child was in your house, you felt like they were probably safe. But today, they can be in your house, and they can be on the computer and someone can be making virtual contact with them. So . . . that is one of the areas where the office has to evolve with the times. Another area in that regard is prosecutor assistance. If you go and you talk to prosecutors across the state, one of the things they’ll tell you is that after 9/11, there are certain types of federal activit[ies] that [are] now not occurring that used to occur, but the resources at the federal level are now going elsewhere. So our local prosecutors are being called upon to do additional things. I can see a role where the state of Texas through the Texas Office of the Attorney General needs to provide help and assistance. . . . [W]e’ll have a prosecutor assistance panel bipartisan group made up to help advise on how we best serve those needs. Keeping in mind that, again, I’m a candidate in this race that’s had actual day-to-day experience in dealing with law enforcement. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been endorsed by the largest law enforcement police organization in the state of Texas. There are things that the attorney general’s office can do to help local law enforcement, from Internet crime and pornography and homeland security to dealing with juveniles and helping provide programs for local law enforcement associations. . . . And then I would also say that . . . we were the first campaign to be talking about the Amber Alert plan � having a statewide Amber Alert plan to help find missing children. And I can see the attorney general’s office playing a major role in helping with the tragic loss of missing children and helping support and promote that plan.
CIVIL SITUATIONS
TL: The attorney general’s office spends a great deal of time and money litigating sovereign immunity issues. Would you advocate the Legislature to place a cap on sovereign immunity cases against the government or do you think the law should stay the way it is?
Watson: . . . I don’t have any evidence at this point or any information that compels me to believe that there ought to be a change in law.
Abbott: Well, the way you’re phrasing it seems to imply that your focus on the issue is based solely upon tort.
TL: Right. Exactly.
Abbott: When it comes to the tort side of the sovereign immunity, I think the law is fine the way it is. . . . If you’ll go back and look at my positions as it concerns nontort legal issues, frankly I think that . . . there needs to be some exceptions to [sovereign immunity] in the nontort area. That was my position on several cases during my time on the Texas Supreme Court, and I believe that those who’ve entered into contracts with the state of Texas who have those contracts stripped away from them or who are otherwise damaged by governmental entities deserve to have some form of recourse for those injuries, and I stand by that position still.
TL: There’s been a movement in which state attorneys general team up to collectively sue various industries, such as prescription drug and gun manufacturers, for harming the states’ consumers. Can you see yourself joining forces with the other attorneys general to sue a large corporation, depending on the corporation?
Abbott: My goal as attorney general will be to use my eight-and-a-half years’ experience as a judge in justice to ensure that laws in Texas are strictly enforced. And I have repeatedly held wrongdoers accountable as a Supreme Court justice and as a state district judge, and I intend to do exactly the same as Texas attorney general. Whenever we find corporate wrongdoers or noncorporate wrongdoers culpable of any kind of violation, civil or criminal, we will use the tools available in the office to make sure that they’re held accountable . . . and if that means teaming up with other attorneys general or if it means going solo, we will go about the process of ensuring that Texas, Texas’ interest and the interest of Texans [are] taken care of.
Watson: Yes. I feel that the attorney general is the elected advocate of the public, and that means . . . that person ought to be independent and have the will to take on those who do damage to Texas families. And I think that may involve, from time to time, joining up with others. But I’m not going to be limited in the way I approach that. If it’s something that needs to be done, whether it’s being done elsewhere or not, the attorney general’s office under my leadership will be the advocate for the public, and we’ll do what we need to do to take on those who are doing wrong.
TL: . . . Here at home in Texas, can you ever see yourself leading a prosecution of a corporate giant such as Enron Corp. or other business entities that are accused of defrauding their shareholders?
Watson: Yes. Again, I believe that the attorney general’s office is intended to be the public’s advocate. It is intended to be the office that represents the people of this state. That is why very early in the campaign I laid out a proposal that I called my “pension protection plan,” where we would even create a fraud watch. It is also why I’ve called for a program to deal with the insurance industry. I think it’s important for the citizens of the state to know that they’re going to have their elected advocate be someone who’s willing to take on those who defraud them or do them wrong in whatever way. You know, right now, a lot of Texans are hurting as a result of what’s going on, particularly with regard to Enron. Those are the kinds of things that they need to have an attorney general that’s going to be watching out for them and when somebody does them wrong is going to be willing to have the independence and the will to take on those big corporations.
Abbott: Absolutely. And that’s why I’ve announced my plan to create the corporate fraud division in the criminal justice division to ensure that we are going to have the proper focus on holding corporate wrongdoers accountable.
TL: Child support collection has been a headache for all Texas attorneys general over the past 15 years. Do you advocate keeping that function as part of the office or moving it to another agency?
Abbott: As you know, when Cornyn took over as attorney general, that was during the time period when the Legislature was threatening to take child support away from the attorney general’s office. . . . Cornyn urged the Legislature to give [the office] one more chance, and he lived up to his promise of reforming child support. [He] improved it immensely and has achieved record collections. . . . [W]hen I first got into this race, I wanted to focus on ways in which I could take this incredibly important division and improve it even beyond what Cornyn has done. And not only will I be working with the Legislature to ensure that the attorney general’s office retains control over this very important division, but I’ve laid out a very productive plan of ensuring that we continue to improve on child support collections. I have an early intervention program focused on getting involved from the moment that the child support order is signed. I’m going to implement a statewide program that’s been used in Tarrant County that’s dramatically increased the child support collections. If we can implement that program statewide, you’re going to find literally thousands upon thousands of children in the state who have more money for food, for clothing, for medical care and for access to education. In addition to the early intervention program, we will be using a job-training program to ensure that the parents who owe child support are going to have the resources available to pay that child support. There is a difference between a deadbeat parent and a dead-broke parent. Those who are dead broke, we’re going to be working with them to help them provide more money for the children that they love and care for. And, of course, for those who fail to comply, we will be seeking criminal convictions. . . . We have to, though, understand that there is a single goal when it comes to child support, and that single goal is ensuring that every child who’s deserving of child support gets as much money as they can for their living needs, and I will be working on achieving that goal.
Watson: I advocate keeping it in the attorney general’s office, and I agree that Cornyn has made substantial improvements in that office. . . . I think what you can see is that over the past four years, Cornyn’s made significant improvement, and I want to build on that. . . . [T]he No. 1 reason women and children in the state of Texas find themselves in poverty is the failure to receive support from [a child's] other parent. As the mayor of a big city in the state of Texas, I came face-to-face with the impact that had on our citizens. And so I’m very committed to making sure that the improvements that have occurred in the past four years continue and that we build on those. I too have laid out a program that will help us, and it will help us in every way, from assuring that parents that don’t pay their child support may face jail time to doing things in the office itself that make it easier to apply for child support, easier to pay child support and easier to get it to the people through technology and otherwise.
TL: For years, the attorney general’s office has restricted its assistant attorneys general from speaking to the press about cases they litigate and instead utilized a press office staffed with non-attorneys. Would you continue this practice or change it?
Watson: Well, I’ll start with the proposition that I think it’s important for the public to know what’s going on when their chief advocate is involved in different litigation. My instinct is to hire, attract and retain quality lawyers that then are in a position to be able to comment and explain so long as it’s not in violation of ethics or rules that . . . ought to be applied to anybody in the midst of litigation. Sometimes there may be a fine line to walk there, but my instinct and bias will be toward more openness, so long as you’re not putting that lawyer in an unethical situation.
Abbott: I am an advocate for open government. I believe one way of achieving that is to ensure that the media has access to those who know the most about what’s going on. There are occasions where that means that the person who will be speaking with the media will be a lawyer who is handling the case, and I envision those occasions arising. And also that goes back to part of the program of what I’m talking about of being able to attract the best and the brightest lawyers across the state of Texas. By giving them this level of responsibility of dealing with the case, dealing with the press, of handling the whole package, I think that we’re going to be able to attract the best and brightest to the office.
TL: I’m holding both of you to that. There’s been quite a bit of discussion about judicial campaign reform, particularly about restricting campaign donations from lawyers and litigants who appear before the judicial candidate. Should there be a similar discussion about attorney general campaigns, which also raise millions from potential opposing lawyers and litigants in the state?
Abbott: As a Supreme Court justice and a state district judge, I lived under rules that govern restrictions on contributions and found that you can run an effective campaign with those restrictions. And I would have no problem seeing restrictions applied also to the attorney general’s race.
Watson: . . . The amount of money and where some of the money comes from in these races sometimes creates difficulty for people to understand why that level of money is coming into a race [and] why a certain candidate is supported in certain ways by different people. I think we need to be ready to get some of the monetary influence out of some of these races, and [I] would be . . . supportive of looking at different ways we [could] do that where we [wouldn't] hamstring the ability of candidates to get their message out. But . . . it’s a big ol’ state, and sometimes it’s hard to get the message out when you’re No. 4 on the ballot, and you want to make sure that people are able to get their message out to the public. But I would be willing and/or welcome the opportunity to look at different ways that we might have some restrictions that would enhance the credibility of the race.
