Michael O. Leavitt Center for Politics & Public Service

First General Counsel Robin Riggs was Governor Leavitt’s general counsel from 1992 to 1997.  Historically, Robin was the first governor’s general counsel in the state.  There was a proposal on the election ballot to change the constitution to allow the governor to appoint his own general counsel to be separate from the Attorney General’s office.  In the past the AG’s office was the governor’s sole representation.  That changed in 1992.  The year before Robin came into the Leavitt administration, he was the executive director of the Constitution Revision Commission and they had talked about the amendment to that portion of the constitution.  During the deliberations in arriving at that recommendation the Commission had interviewed AG and deputy AGs about that issue including Jan Graham, who at time was very much opposed to having governor be able to appoint his/her own general counsel; not knowing if that would have an impact on the relationship between Governor Leavitt and AG Jan Graham.  The real historical nuance is that being the first general counsel for a sitting governor in Utah, Robin had to blaze a trail in terms of how that relationship would in fact work with the AG going forward.  Every time (more…)