Just to clarify, Rob: The attorney general has to be a lawyer because the constitution says he has to be one. (Article 5, Section 4). If the constitution didn’t say the attorney general had to be a lawyer, he/she wouldn’t have to be one.
You may be interested to know that the requirement that the attorney general be a lawyer who is licensed to practice law in North Dakota was only adopted by the voters in 1996, as part of a rewrite of the constitution’s executive branch article. Before then, the attorney general only had to be 25 years old, a U.S. citizen and a resident of North Dakota for five years before the election.
The amendment is in Chapter 568, section 4, of the 1997 session laws. I’m afraid I can’t find the legislative resolution online, which would show you what was deleted when the new article was implemented. But I know for a fact that it wasn’t until then that the constitution required the attorney general to be a lawyer.
But I can understand requiring that the person who represents this state in legal matters be an attorney. I don’t understand why the administrator of the public school system need necessarily be a teacher.
Rob - 09:03pm on 03/22/2007
Rob you shold take your post and add it to the comments over at Bismarckdems. It would be good to ad some context to the mix for the 35th district chair.
Just to clarify, Rob: The attorney general has to be a lawyer because the constitution says he has to be one. (Article 5, Section 4). If the constitution didn’t say the attorney general had to be a lawyer, he/she wouldn’t have to be one.
http://www.legis.nd.gov/constitution/const.pdf
You may be interested to know that the requirement that the attorney general be a lawyer who is licensed to practice law in North Dakota was only adopted by the voters in 1996, as part of a rewrite of the constitution’s executive branch article. Before then, the attorney general only had to be 25 years old, a U.S. citizen and a resident of North Dakota for five years before the election.
The amendment is in Chapter 568, section 4, of the 1997 session laws. I’m afraid I can’t find the legislative resolution online, which would show you what was deleted when the new article was implemented. But I know for a fact that it wasn’t until then that the constitution required the attorney general to be a lawyer.
http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/55-1997/ranch/SL7CNSTM.pdf
Well then, I stand corrected.
But I can understand requiring that the person who represents this state in legal matters be an attorney. I don’t understand why the administrator of the public school system need necessarily be a teacher.
Rob you shold take your post and add it to the comments over at Bismarckdems. It would be good to ad some context to the mix for the 35th district chair.
C.