This was originally published by Utica Observer-Dispatch on August 18, 2010.

Attorney General Candidate Wants to Address State’s Issues

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Elmsford, swept through the Mohawk Valley Tuesday as part of a statewide tour to try to succeed Andrew Cuomo as the state’s attorney general.

That task will not be easy.

Brodsky is in a five-way primary race for the Democratic line. So how does he differentiate himself?

“A lot of the other candidates talk about the attorney general as if it’s a super-prosecutor,” Brodsky told reporters Tuesday outside the State Office Building.

He had just held a news conference inside on the state Health Department’s new cancer mapping website with Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito, D-Rome.

“I want to turn the attorney general’s office into a place addressing the problems people have in every day life,” he said.

Brodsky has been in the state Assembly since 1982, according to his Web site. He said there is room to expand the job title of attorney general to include various issues, and he is focusing on several issues affecting upstate — hydro-fracking and job growth.

He also said he is not using the seat as a ladder to higher office. If elected, it would be his last elected position, he said.

“One of the reasons I’ll be able to take on the tough guys is I’m not using this as a stepping stone,” he said.

Brodsky’s opponents in the Democrat primary are Sean Coffey, a former prosecutor; former state insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo; Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen M. Rice; and state Sen. Eric Schneiderman.

Republican Dan Donovan, a Richmond County (Staten Island) district attorney, awaits the winner in the general election.