Katherine Green Robertson addressed the Etowah County Republican Party

March 18. 2025 – RAINBOW CITY, AL – Attorney General's counsel Katherine Green Robertson spoke to the Etowah County Republican Party breakfast on Saturday. Robertson is being widely discussed as a candidate for attorney general.

State Representative Mack Butler (R-Rainbow City) said, "She would make a great Attorney general,"

Robertson did not say if she is a candidate to be the next Alabama Attorney General.

"I am not here to announce anything," said Robertson.

'I am Catherine Robertson," said Robertson. "I am a Dallas County girl. I went to Auburn (for undergraduate). I also went to Alabama (law school). I majored in political science and there is not much you can do with that, so I went to law school. I worked at the Justice Department under (President) George W Bush. Then I worked for (Senator) Jeff Sessions."

Later Robertson returned to Alabama.

"I was hired by now Congressman Gary Palmer at the Alabama Policy Institute," said Robertson. "I ran their policy shop for 4 or 5 years. I already understood the federal government; but that is where I learned state government."

"I wanted to get back to practicing law, so I called (then Attorney General) Luther Strange," said Robertson. I have been here for three weeks, and Luther was appointed Senator."

As a Strange appointee that mean that Robertson was looking for work.

"Then Jeff Sessions called," said Robertson. "I worked on Jeff Sessions confirmation for about three weeks."

Once Sessions was confirmed she was briefly out of work again, but then Steve Marshall called asking her to join his team as the new Alabama Attorney General.

"I never met the guy in my life," said Robertson. "I knew nothing other than he had been the Marshall County DA for a long time."

"Will you give me six months?" Robertson recalled Marshall asking. "8 and a half years later here I am."

"Criminal law ; that is our bread and butter but you guys know that the AG's office is a whole lot bigger than that," Robertson said.

"We are the state's civil defense," said Robertson. "We also do consumer protection and Medicaid fraud."

"It took 2 or 3 years before we hit our stride," recalled Robertson.

Robertson said that one of the biggest things that changed wit the Marshall administration is that the attorney general "needed to be the thought leader" on criminal justice policy.

Robertson said that the state had strayed to far into leniency with criminal justice.

"We have got to get back on the right track because crimes have gone up," said Robertson. The state was "Too lenient."

"Our prisons had flipped from 60% non-violent offenders to 80 to 85% violent offenders," said Robertson.

"We are working on the Speedy Trial Act,' said Robertson. "There are places in Alabama where the criminal case backlog is over 100 cases." (Over time) -"You start losing track of witnesses and public sentiment is not as great as it was when the crime happened."

Robertson explained that the Speedy Trial Act would allow a request to be made to the Chief Justice (currently Lynn Stewart) that, "We need you to appoint a special judge to clear a backlog," on the criminal docket.

"Most of you remember the case of Aniah Blanchard," said Richardson. "It (the trial of her murderer) has been scheduled and rescheduled several times."

"It doesn't really cost anything we are using judges that are already active or are retired," explained Robertson. "We are really excited about that it has bipartisan support. It passed unanimously in the Senate."

Robertson said that under former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, "The DOJ they would not leave us alone because they know when you have to litigate it is a real drain on our resources."

Robertson said that new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, "Is a friend: and it helps."

"We settled a case with Wes Allen Friday," said Robertson. "We really want to get our prison case settled."

The DOJ is suing the state claiming that our prisons conditions are so bad that it is an unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

"The FBI has a big footprint in Alabama," said Robertson. "We have not felt that partnership with them over the last couple of years. We want to reestablish that relationship."

Robertson said that the state receives a lot of federal money; but a down side of that is that they are "Tying strings to it that we can't go along with."

Robertson said that she wrote a paper when she was at API that warned that the Obama Administration could tie our federal money to following their dictates and that we needed to have a plan for that.

At the end of the Obama administration, "They did lean into it and we didn't have a plan. That was 2016, then we got some relief with Trump was elected. We should haver used that time to plan for the next time that somebody President we did not get along with.

Then Joe Biden got elected.

"He made it a condition of the ARPA money that you could not lower taxes for three years if you took the money," said Robertson. "We sued and we won."

Then there were the vaccine mandates.

"We have several state agencies that live on federal money. The department of public health was one of them," Robertson said. "Then came the Title IX mandate."

Biden wanted men who identify as women and girls to be able to use the girls' restrooms.

"How could they tell us what a woman was/" said Robertson. "We spent three weeks in federal court making sure that we could have separate bathrooms. One lawsuit stood between you and totally remaking your schools. That is not a good thing."

"That Title IX stuff was really scary," said Robertson. "Our relationship with other red state attorney generals is the best part of this job. We have so much fun working together."

Steve Marshall's willingness to fight the Biden administration has been recognized nationally.

"You would not believe how many Ivey League people apply to work for Steve Marshall," said Robertson. "We fight and our people back us up. We know what our people want and we go out and do it."

"Ther are some obvious dangers of state agencies being basically run by the federal government," said Robertson. "We don't have a substitute for that (federal money)."

"When you hear federal state partnership that means that the state is not in control, the federal government is in charge," said Robertson. "We are not set up to turn down huge chunks of federal money."

Robertson said that the Attorney General's office is not over the Alabama prisons or the big cost overruns on them.

"We want them built because our prisons are in very bad shape," said Robertson.

Amy Minton, who serves on the state library board, said that public libraries have taken 864 books on gender ideology.

"You need to be very careful about what you put in the children's section," said Robertson.

The Attorney General's office is defending the state against lawsuits challenging the state law prohibiting experimental gender assignment surgery

Robertson said that the "state of Alabama in discovery blew that out of the water."

The plaintiffs, backed by Garland and the Biden DOJ produced stacks of paper from the medical community defending gender reassignment on children.

"We got deep into discovery in this path," said Robertson. "Their research did not show that; but they were pressured by the Biden Administration, specifically Admiral Levine to produce that conclusion. There was obvious collusion. We showed that in court. Their credibility is shot. Tennessee (who has a law similar to Alabama's) is gong to win this case."

Robertson did not say if she is a candidate to be the next Alabama Attorney General.

"I am not here to announce anything," said Robertson.

Robertson said that the AG's office capital punishment defense team has a "99% success rate."

Alabama is the first state to use "nitrogen hypoxia (as an execution method) and now Louisiana is getting ready to do their first one."

"We are doing executions almost monthly which compared to other states is way high," said Robetson.

Robertson said that the focus of the AG's office is on getting Bondi and the Trump administration to drop all of these frivolous lawsuits that the Biden DOJ filed against the state.

"Our focus right now is all these federal cases," said Robertson.

Governor Kay Ivey (R) recently commuted the death sentence of Rocky Myers.

The Alabama Gazette asked about her view on that decision by the governor.

"We vehemently disagreed with that decision," said Robertson. "It ruined my night and a lot of other people's. We feel terrible for the victim's family."

At this point the only declared candidate for AG is Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey (R); but that is expected to change in the coming weeks.

The Republican primary will be May 26, 2026.