Getty Images/iStockphotoNASHVILLE - Tennessee Supreme Court justices plan to announce their pick for state attorney general on Monday, their office announced late this afternoon.
The formal announcement comes after the five-member court held an open five-hour plus public interview of eight applicants on Monday before retreating behind closed doors where they cut two of them and conducted further closed-door interviews on Tuesday.
Sitting Attorney General Bob Cooper, a Chattanooga native and Democrat, is vying with five other applicants, most if not all of them Republican. The list includes Herbert Slatery, legal counsel to Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, state Sen. Doug Overbey, R-Maryville, and Bill Young, chief administrative officer of the courts.
Tennessee is the only state in the nation that gives the highest court the responsibility for naming the attorney general. In Georgia, Alabama and most other states, voters are given the power to do so.
In August, three sitting Democratic justices easily won their retention reelection despite a well-funded effort by Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey and GOP-aligned national groups to defeat them. Two Republican justices, named earlier this year by Haslam, were not up for retention votes.