During a brief court session Monday, a hearing date was set for the lawsuit challenging Daniel Cameron’s eligibility to be Kentucky’s attorney general.
The civil case filed a week ago in Jefferson County has been assigned to Circuit Judge Barry Willett. He scheduled a hearing on the merits of the claims for 10 a.m. Oct. 7, just 29 days before the general election.
The suit claims Cameron, 33, does not meet a Kentucky constitutional requirement for a candidate to have served eight years as a practicing attorney. A 2004 graduate of John Hardin High School, Cameron graduated from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville in 2011 and passed the bar exam in October of that year.
By the time of the Nov. 5 election, he will have been a lawyer for eight years, but the suit focuses on the constitutional phrase “practicing attorney.”
Citing judicial precedent, the suit claims Kentucky courts have defined the practice of law as “any service rendered involving legal knowledge or legal advice, whether of representation, counsel, advocacy in or out of court, rendered in respect to the rights, duties, obligations, liabilities or business relations of one requiring the services.”
It says from September 2009 until he became legal counsel for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2013, Cameron worked as a federal law clerk. The suit includes an attachment of federal ethics laws which prohibit a law clerk from also acting as a practicing attorney.
Cameron’s campaign filed Friday a 74-page response to the case, which cites a similar 1995 challenge against Ben Chandler which says the court ruled the practice of law “is measured only by how long a candidate has been licensed as an attorney.”
His campaign manager, Nicholas Weinstein, also summarized the response as saying, “Kentucky courts construe candidate qualification provisions broadly in statutes and the Constitution. Courts have held consistently that voters and not courts should choose Kentucky’s elected officials.”
The suit was filed on behalf of Joseph L. Jackson, who, like Cameron, resides in Jefferson County. The Cameron camp, in an official statement, claims his Democratic opponent Greg Stumbo is behind the challenge. It claims the suit is a desperate attempt by Stumbo to rob a qualified candidate of the election.
“It’s a farce and Stumbo’s a fool for wasting everyone’s time,” the statement said.
Stumbo, 68, previously served one term as attorney general and is a former House speaker. He is not a party to the suit.
Jackson’s complaint does name Attorney General Andy Beshear and Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes in their official capacities as the state’s top law-enforcement officer and chief election officer, respectively.
–30–
Cross-posted from the News-Enterprise via the Kentucky Press News Service.