Wednesday, January 4, 2017

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Kenealy Becomes Acting Attorney General

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Chief Deputy Attorney General Kathleen Alice Kenealy will be acting California attorney general until the Legislature confirms a successor to Kamala Harris, who resigned yesterday as head of the state Department of Justice before taking office as a United States senator.

Harris, elected in November, took her oath of office in Washington, D.C.

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Dec. 5 on Twitter that he would nominate Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, as state attorney general. He formally made the nomination yesterday, triggering a 90-day period within which the Legislature may confirm or reject the appointment.

Kenealy earned her undergraduate degree from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and her law degree from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in the District of Columbia.

She joined the Office of the Attorney General in August 2003 as a deputy in the Natural Resources Law Section; the section’s senior assistant attorney general in September 2010; and for more than five years has been chief assistant attorney general for the civil law division.