Democratic race for attorney general seems wide open

The five Democratic candidates for New York attorney general have verbally pummeled each other throughout the primary season, all of them promising to fight corruption and bring reform to state government.

Now, with the Sept. 14 primary around the corner, Democrats are preparing to vote for the candidate who will run against Dan Donovan, the Republican Staten Island district attorney, in the fall.

The race appears to still be wide open. Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice (D-Garden City), the lone woman in the race, has been running slightly ahead in the polls, but a Sept. 2 Quinnipiac University poll found that 77 percent of registered Democratic voters questioned didn't know who they would vote for.

Pollster Steven Greenberg of the Siena Research Institute is predicting a low turnout. "There are five low-profile candidates that are largely unknown to the Democratic voters of the state," Greenberg said.

New York's attorney general largely handles civil matters, such as consumer protection and civil rights, but the governor may ask the office to do criminal investigations.

Three of the candidates - Rice, former state Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo and trial attorney Sean Coffey - have experience as criminal prosecutors. The other candidates are State Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan) and State Assemb. Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester). In recent interviews, the candidates stated their positions on key issues.

Only Dinallo, 47, has worked in the attorney general's office. As chief of the investor protection bureau, he helped then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer combat Wall Street fraud. And as state insurance superintendent, Dinallo expanded health insurance access to 400,000 of the uninsured.

"I am the only candidate who, as a public official, has led the biggest fights against Wall Street, held the insurance companies accountable, put violent criminals in jail, and stood up to the powerful interests that try to take advantage of average New Yorkers," Dinallo said.

Coffey, 54, was lead attorney in the WorldCom Inc. accounting fraud case, winning more than $6 billion for investors. Coffey was also personal military assistant to Vice President George H.W. Bush and as a federal prosecutor, pursued business crime and bank fraud cases.

"I will crack down on public corruption, police Wall Street and protect consumers from frauds and scams that are just as dangerous," Coffey said.

Rice, 45, a former Republican, was a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia and an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn in the homicide bureau. Her fight against drunken driving received national attention. She has also created bureaus in the DA's office to target Medicaid fraud and real estate crime.

"Nobody else in this race is in the independent position I am to hold Albany or Wall Street accountable, and nobody has the background I do in keeping families safe from crime," Rice said. "The next attorney general will need to do both of these things and I believe that my qualifications set me apart from the field."

Schneiderman, 55, headed the Senate committee that expelled Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat convicted of a domestic assault misdemeanor.

"As a public interest lawyer, progressive activist, and reform-minded lawmaker, I believe I am the candidate in this race who has demonstrated the strongest lifelong commitment to equal justice under the law," Schneiderman said.

Brodsky, 64, has headed the Assembly Committee on Oversight, Analysis and Investigation and heads the Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions. He piloted passage of the Public Authorities Reform Act, bringing more public scrutiny to agencies like LIPA and the MTA.

"In the end, what distinguishes my candidacy from the others is a very carefully stated set of proposals that would make me the lawyer confronting the problems that regular New Yorkers face in their daily lives," Brodsky said.

One issue in the campaign has been the voting records of the candidates.

According to a Newsday story, records show that Rice failed to vote for nearly 20 years after first registering in Nassau County as a Republican in 1984. She cast her first vote in November 2002. She characterizes her long-term failure to vote as a youthful lapse.

Coffey voted in 15 of the 26 years since he registered to vote in Nassau in 1984, and recalled voting in other states. Dinallo, Brodsky and Schneiderman voted in the vast majority of elections in which they were eligible.