Endorsement: Rob Bonta for California attorney general

When he was in the state Legislature, Rob Bonta was known to have his eye on the job of state attorney general and was widely spoken of as a top prospect for the office. Opinion L.A. Times electoral endorsements for November 2022 The L.A. Times’ editorial board endorsements for statewide ballot measures, elected offices in Los Angeles city and county, L.A. Unified School District board, L.A. county superior court, statewide offices, the state Legislature and U.S. House and Senate seats. These topics and others are central to the nation’s increasingly divisive political debate, and voters might well ask whether California’s chief law officer and criminal prosecutor ought to leave political issues to Congress and the state Legislature and avoid blatant partisanship to the extent possible. The court struck down New York’s 1911 concealed weapons law in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. vs. Bruen, defeating the state, which was represented by an appointee of New York’s Democratic attorney general. Unlike the federal government, in which the U.S. attorney general is an appointed member of the president’s Cabinet, the attorneys general of 43 states are elected officials who run independently from the governor in partisan races and take partisan stances — and file or threaten to file often transparently partisan lawsuits — on questions such as the validity of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.