Reporter, State AGs

Job Description:

POLITICO is seeking two aggressive, enterprising reporters to cover state attorneys general as national political and policy actors. Each reporter will be a founding member of POLITICO's new State AGs team, and will report on how AGs are shaping tech, energy, health care, consumer protection and antitrust policy regionally and nationally, and the dynamics shaping multistate and partisan coalitions.

The reporters will cover four overlapping areas:

• The anchor states. California, New York, Texas and Florida run the most powerful AG offices in the country, and their actions on tech, finance, energy and health care often set national standards.
• Other key states. The offices that drive coalition strategy and national policy fights, including Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington on the Democratic side, and Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana and Utah on the Republican side.
• A redrawn AG map. November's elections gave Democrats AG offices in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Iowa and Kansas. The beat will follow how those offices take shape and how Republican AGs respond.
• Coalition dynamics. How multistate coalitions form and fracture, who leads and who follows, how DAGA and RAGA shape them, and where AGs of both parties find common ground.

A deep source network inside AG offices of both parties will be essential, going well beyond public filings and press releases. Those sources will drive exclusive news on investigations and lawsuits, along with reporting from inside coalition conversations on which cases to bring, which companies to target and which states will sign on.

The beat will focus closely on how AGs decide where to intervene, against business or against the federal government. Democratic AGs have become the front line of legal resistance to the Trump administration, while Republican AGs have often acted as its partners and force multipliers. The beat will also track how coalitions form, who leads them and who follows, where AGs of both parties find common ground, and how the office has become a launchpad for national ambition.

The policy portfolio will include health care, antitrust, AI and tech platforms, consumer protection, climate and energy, financial services, ESG and DEI, labor, and the limits of federal power — the enforcement fights where AGs are most active and where their actions carry the biggest consequences for companies and investors.

The reporters will work hand in hand with POLITICO's California, New York and Florida teams, which already cover their states' AGs closely as political figures and policymakers.

What You'll Need:

• Reporting experience covering politics, policy, government or the law
• A demonstrated ability to break news and deliver original, incisive reporting
• Deep familiarity with state politics and with the state-federal legal battles of the past decade
• The ability to build a network of sources in AG offices, DAGA, RAGA, or the legal and political circles around them
• A strong interest in the personalities, rivalries and ambitions that drive AG offices
• An entrepreneurial spirit and eagerness to help build an exciting new part of our journalism
• The ability to juggle fast-moving breaking news with ambitious enterprise reporting
• The ability to write clearly, accurately and efficiently on deadline for an influential, professional audience
• A collaborative spirit and willingness to work with reporters and editors across POLITICO's state, legal and policy teams
• A rigorous commitment to fair-minded, accurate and nonpartisan journalism

We’re open to candidates based in Arlington, VA (HQ); New York, NY; or Sacramento, CA. If you’re not near one of our offices, we still encourage you to apply.

Compensation: $90,000-$140,000 Annual Base. The final salary offered will be based on factors including relevant experience, skills, and qualifications.

We value our people. Click here for more on what we offer and what it’s like to work for POLITICO. 

Let’s keep in touch. You can view our list of open positions here.

About Us.

POLITICO illuminates the forces shaping global power. Since 2007, we have delivered intelligence that anticipates tomorrow's headlines, not reports on yesterday's news. As politics has increasingly become the defining force of our era, our work has never been more vital. 

Cabinet secretaries and Ministers start their mornings with our analysis. CEOs shape strategy around our reporting. Advocacy leaders rely on our insights to move policy. We deliver the straightforward facts and clear-eyed analysis they need to navigate the most complex political landscape of our lifetimes. 

Our 1,100+ publishing professionals across the world's key democratic capitals—Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Sacramento, and New York—form the world's premier politics and policy newsroom. We tell the story of how power really works by explaining who wields it and how they plan to exercise it, connecting dots others miss and delivering scoops from sources others don't even know exist. 

Innovation has always been a core tenet of our story. At launch, we bet that depth would trump scale, that talent would trump traffic, and that politics would become central to modern life. In 2011, we made another bet and launched POLITICO Pro to help decision-makers understand the business of government, transforming both how they shape government action and the business of journalism itself. 

These bets have made POLITICO the most successful digital news startup of its generation and the indispensable resource for leaders who shape the future. Today, we are a rarity in media: a growing, profitable, and sustainable news organization. 

POLITICO is a subsidiary of Axel Springer SE, a family-owned transatlantic media company headquartered in Berlin and New York. Axel Springer is dedicated to shaping the future of journalism in the free world, believing that a free and informed society is essential to democracy. Learn more about Axel Springer. 

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