But whether his star burns bright or fizzles out hinges on victory in the Nov. 2 election against Republican Mike DeWine, a former U.S. senator, lieutenant governor and Greene County prosecutor.
“There is great work in the attorney general’s office but you need an attorney general who believes that the working men and women of this state are the ones we represent,” he tells the labor leaders before making a plea for their help on the campaign trail.
Afterward, Cordray says, “This is a big race for me. They needed to know that.”
Cordray, 51, is the middle son of three who grew up in Grove City, a suburb of Columbus. Tall and slender, Cordray’s boyhood plans to become a basketball player were dashed by insufficient size and talent. His mom figured he’d make a good lawyer, given how much he liked to argue.
Frank Cordray, an orthodontist, said that as a child, his younger brother was a fierce competitor on the basketball court, a very good baseball catcher, mathematics whiz and a voracious reader.
“Our dad would kid him because he would walk down the street, holding a book and run into people,” Frank Cordray said. These days Richard Cordray likes online Scrabble and sinking the winning shot in pick-up basketball games. “That really gets him jazzed. He says it gets him through a hard week,” Frank Cordray said.
Supreme Court clerk, ‘Jeopardy’ champ
Cordray’s academic and legal credentials are top drawer: master’s in economics from Oxford University, law degree from the University of Chicago, clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy, personally argued seven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and taught law school at Ohio State University.
He is also a quiz bowl whiz. If campaign volunteers put up enough Cordray yard signs, they get a DVD of his five-show reign as “Jeopardy” champion in April 1987.
His political career has been full of promise and defeat. He won a seat in the Ohio House in 1990 but left two years later when his district was redrawn and he then lost a three-way race for Congress in 1992. In 1998, Republican Betty Montgomery clobbered him by a 2-to-1 ratio in the race for attorney general and he then lost a four-way Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate in 2000.
He readjusted his aspirations and ran for Franklin County treasurer in a 2002 special election. He finally won elective office again. In 2006, he made the jump from county treasurer to state treasurer but only stuck with that job for two years before running statewide again in a special election to fill out the remainder of Democrat Marc Dann’s term as attorney general.
The pull toward politics and public service comes from a belief instilled by his parents that government can raise the quality of life for people, he said.
“I’ve always felt that politics is about choices and leadership and setting the direction of a community or state or country. That’s an important thing to be engaged in,” Cordray said. “The founding generation didn’t have a problem with that question. They didn’t ask one another why do you want to be in politics? They knew it was important. And I think it has not changed over 200 years even though people feel that politics has been pretty scuffed up over the years. And there’s a lot of people who fall short of the minimal expectations that the public has for public officials.”
Cordray’s silver Pontiac minivan is a rolling campaign and law office. The floor is littered with pens, paper clips, grapefruit juice, campaign fliers, a copy of the U.S. Constitution, an attorney general staff list, programs for police officer funerals and quarters for parking meters. “I hate paying for parking. I’m tight,” he admits.
As jumbled as his minivan is, Cordray is focused and concise when he addresses supporters, the media, fellow attorneys or even new law school grads who just joined his staff.
More than a dozen fresh-faced, dark-suited new grads sit in rapt attention as Cordray welcomes them to the attorney general’s office. They all know he clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices and argued seven times before the highest court in the land.
When Cordray starts taking questions, one young man says, “Is there really a basketball court on top of the Supreme Court?”
Cordray confirms it, dishes out a bit of court history. Another question comes up, “How did you feel the first time you argued before the U.S. Supreme Court?” Cordray fires back, “Nervous” before giving them a few more insider details and moving on to answer questions about writing briefs, finding mentors, and serving Ohio.
“It’s a lot of work to run this office. We’re running it well,” he tells them. “I always say that whenever somebody does something really mean or really stupid in state government, it’ll probably end up at the attorney general’s office.”
Holding Wall Street accountable
Cordray said he spent the early part of his tenure in the attorney general’s office cleaning up the mess left by the Marc Dann administration.
In May 2008, Dann resigned under pressure after revelations that he had an extramarital affair with a junior staffer, hired his friends into top level jobs, and mismanaged the office.
As attorney general, Cordray has focused resources on holding Wall Street accountable for questionable practices that led to multimillion dollar losses to the state’s pension funds and other investors.
Cordray’s office is heavily involved in nine major securities actions against household corporate names such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, BP Oil and UnitedHealth. Some of those cases have already led to settlement agreements: $1 billion from AIG, $97.5 million from PricewaterhouseCoopers, $400 million from Marsh, $475 million form Merrill Lynch and $922 million from UnitedHealth.
Cordray said he also is focused on home foreclosures, consumer scams, and helping local law enforcement.
Cordray refuses to say what he has in mind for his career after the attorney general’s office.
“I don’t dwell a lot on my political career because I’ve seen set backs and reverses and seen how hazardous it is to lay plans. What I do know and what I think is very clear is that we’re doing good work in the attorney general’s office. If I’m re-elected, I’ll have four more years to be doing that work. What ever might come after that, who knows. We’ll see. I might get hit by a bus tomorrow.”
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