Over the years, I have written some unkind things about the last two Vermont Attorneys General, Bill Sorrell and TJ Donovan. I can’t say I regret anything in particular. But in light of recent events, it must be said that some of their actions have less to do with political timidity or personal fecklessness and more to do with the inherent weirdness of the office itself.

Our current Attorney General, Charity Clark, has been all over the news this week. She joined other AGs in challenging the Trump administration order ending birthright citizenship. She announced a multi-billion-dollar settlement of a lawsuit against the Sacklers and other bigwigs of Big Pharma responsible for an epidemic of substance use disorder. Strong stuff.

At the same time, her office was before the Vermont Supreme Court defending Gov. Phil Scott’s appointment of Zoie Saunders as interim education secretary. Yes, a Democratic AG was taking the side of a Republican governor in a lawsuit filed by a Democrat and a Progressive.

Because she had no choice. Clark, like Donovan and Sorrell before her, can act like a progressive firebrand outside of Vermont, but she must defend the status quo within the state. It’s literally in her job description: She is the people’s lawyer, yet she also represents the state. And when those two notions are in conflict, her duty to the state comes first.

Here’s another encapsulation of the weirdness. Clark is pursuing a suit (originally filed by Donovan) against fossil fuel producers for knowingly contributing to global warming. But Clark would represent the state in a suit filed by the Conservation Law Foundation over the state’s failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She’d be arguing against climate action. Not because she’s an environmental hypocrite, but because she is legally bound to represent the state in court.

This innate contradiction is exacerbated when the attorney general and the governor hail from different parties, as has been the case for most of the past quarter century. Except for Peter Shumlin’s six years in office, we’ve had Democratic AGs and Republican governors. And the Dems have been duty-bound to defend the Repubs in court.

But even when the two officers hail from the same party, there are conflicts. In any action related to, say, the EB-5 scandal, the attorney general has to argue for the state — even when state officials are complicit in wrongdoing or, at best, a cover-up. The Attorney General’s office has fought against public disclosure of documents necessary for complete understanding of the EB-5 affair. Clark herself negotiated a settlement of an EB-5 suit that spared prominent people the spectacle of testifying under oath, and left us taxpayers to fork over the $16.5 million cost of the settlement. Not exactly acting like The People’s Advocate.

And if some enterprising citizen were to challenge the secrecy-first, cover-officials’-asses public records and ethics laws, well, Clark and her team would be in court arguing for the status quo. Even if the status quo is at odds with the public interest.

I don’t know how other states define the responsibilities of their attorneys general or if this seemingly inherent contradiction is unique to Vermont. But I feel safe in saying that there’s something wrong with the way the office is defined. If you were creating the office from scratch, I doubt that you’d follow the Vermont model.

What if, just spitballing here, the attorney general was the people’s attorney, full stop? What if the state government had a legal team separate from the AGO to represent it in court when necessary? What if we could count on our elected attorney general to defend our interests first, last, and always?

I think I like that idea better than what we’ve got now. Of course, I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV, and doubtless some member of the Bar could explain why I’m wrong and why the attorney general’s office is properly designed in the law. But you know, I don’t think I’d buy it.