WASHINGTON -- Although his name was floated Thursday as a replacement for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor is not interested, his staff said.
Holder, the country's first black attorney general, announced Thursday afternoon that he plans to resign, but will stay at the Justice Department until his replacement is confirmed.
Pryor, a Democrat from Little Rock, is in a tight election campaign against U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Dardanelle.
"Sen. Pryor isn't interested in the position and therefore won't be up for consideration. He is focused on representing Arkansas as senator," Pryor spokesman Lisa Ackerman said by email. "He has no interest, does not want to be considered and would not take the job."
White House officials told reporters that President Barack Obama had not decided on a successor. Holder informed Obama of his decision to leave very recently, staff said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said there is no timetable to name a replacement.
"I'm confident there are members of the president's team who have been thinking about who solid candidates might be. ... I've not seen the list. I'm sure the president has his own ideas and there will be a formal process," he said. "This is a high priority position."
Bloomberg News reported that along with Pryor, others being discussed include Solicitor General Donald Verrilli; Deputy Attorney General James Cole; former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler; California Attorney General Kamala Harris; U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
The attorney general leads the Justice Department and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government, according to the Justice Department website. The attorney general represents the United States in legal matters generally and gives advice and opinions to the president and to the heads of the executive departments when requested.
Pryor has a law degree from the University of Arkansas and worked in private practice for more than 10 years. Pryor served as Arkansas' attorney general from 1999 to 2002. He has been in the U.S. Senate since.
Pryor has not paid the annual fee on his attorney's license since he went into voluntary inactive status in 2007. His Arkansas law license was suspended for nonpayment of dues in March 2013, which is common among attorneys, according to the clerk's office of the Arkansas Supreme Court.
The fee is $100 a year for a voluntarily inactive license.
Arkansas has provided an attorney general just once. Augustus H. Garland served in President Grover Cleveland's administration from 1885 until the day he died while arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1889, according to the Department of Justice website.
Metro on 09/26/2014