Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is now the president of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).
As president, Schmidt will lead the national organization of 56 state and territorial attorneys general for the next year.
“This is a tremendous opportunity to put the interests of Kansans front-and-center on a national platform,” Schmidt said. “The National Association of Attorneys General helps state and territorial attorneys general engage in serious work to solve serious problems. I am grateful to my colleagues around the country for giving me this chance to lead.”
As president, Schmidt will have the opportunity frame a presidential initiative to focus the association’s work for the next year on a topic of particular interest. He said he will announce the subject of his presidential initiative after the Fourth of July holiday. In recent years, presidential initiative subjects have included human trafficking, consumer privacy and promoting child safety.
NAAG serves as a non-partisan forum for attorneys general to discuss and work together on issues of common interest. The organization also provides training and instruction to help state attorneys general build and maintain professional staff, assists states in ongoing implementation of the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, and helps coordinate multi-state investigations involving consumer or Medicaid fraud.
The nation’s state and territorial attorneys general unanimously elected Schmidt their president Thursday at the NAAG annual summer meeting in Big Sky, Montana. Schmidt is the fourth Kansan to serve as NAAG president since the organization was founded in 1907. The others were Harold Fatzer (1952-53), Robert Stephan (1985-86) and Carla Stovall (2001-02).
Schmidt has served as Kansas Attorney General since 2011. He is a native of Independence, and holds a law degree from Georgetown University, a master’s degree from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, and a doctorate from the University of Kansas School of Law. Before being elected Kansas Attorney General, Schmidt, 49, served as Kansas Senate majority leader and as an assistant to Governor Bill Graves and U.S. Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum.
He and his wife, Jennifer, have two daughters.