To change legal horses in midstream, King says, "would not make sense, I don't think, under any circumstance. ..."

Probably true. It's also true that one of the circumstances is the firm's generosity with political contributions. King reported two $25,000 contributions from the firm in 2006 when he was running for his first term. Former Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who also accepted big contributions from the Houston lawyers, awarded the original contract for the firm to sue a pharmaceutical company on a contingency fee basis. King says he didn't know, as a candidate, that the Texas lawyers were working on behalf of the state under contract.

One could make a reasonable argument that a would-be attorney general should reflexively connect dots between big out-of-state contributions and contracts with the office that might require future decisions affecting those interests.

One could also argue that attorneys general should weigh the potential ethical fallout against the potential benefits to consumers from multistate lawsuits cooked up by big firms. That kind of evaluation might have led to the Attorney General's Office in Pennsylvania rejecting a proposal from the same law firm to prosecute the suit against the drug company.

Being persistent investors, the firm just went up the political food chain to Gov. Ed Rendell, another beneficiary of its campaign finance largess, according to the Wall Street Journal, and got a no-bid contingency fee contract.

Assume for the sake of the inevitable argument that such lawsuits are good and necessary work that should be endorsed by all attorneys general. But, unless they are retainers, the campaign contributions are not necessary and should be refused by vigilant candidates or returned by the less diligent.

Otherwise, that kind of baggage could trip up an attorney general's efforts to take a hard line on the pay-to-play entanglements of other officials.