Carla Stovall

American politician

Carla J. Stovall (born March 18, 1957, Hardtner, Kansas) also known as Carla Stovall Steckline is a Republican politician from Marion, Kansas who served as Attorney General of the State of Kansas from 1995 to 2003. During her tenure, she also served as president of the National Association of Attorneys General.

Stovall, from rural Marion County, Kansas, is the daughter of Carl and Juanita Stovall. In 1975, she graduated from Marion High School. In 1979, she graduated from Pittsburg State University with a social science degree, and, in 1982, from the University of Kansas School of Law with a Juris Doctor degree. and against the tobacco industry (particularly as it affected children).

In 1996, Stovall sued the tobacco industry—the 11th state attorney general to do so, and one of the nation's first Republican AGs to file suit against the tobacco industry. The largest settlement in all her cases as A. G. was a $1.6 billion judgment against the tobacco industry, and an injunction ordering large tobacco companies to stop marketing their products to children. Some controversy arose in Stovall's handling of the tobacco case, when she hired her former law firm, Entz & Chanay, to serve as "local counsel" during the state's settlement negotiations with the tobacco defendants, despite their lack of experience in tobacco litigation. Her local colleagues subsequently made donations to Stovall's campaign. After the courts awarded lawyers for Kansas $54 million, Stovall (by then no longer Kansas Attorney General) was summoned before a legislative committee to explain why her former law firm had gotten half of the money ($27 million). In 1999, Stovall was among the founding board members of the American Legacy Foundation, an organization formed to reduce teen tobacco use and warn all people of tobacco related disease (particularly through their familiar "truth" campaign). Stovall also pushed for tobacco prevention measures as a member of the Kansas Children's Cabinet (a board advising the Kansas Legislature on how to spend money from tobacco lawsuit settlements).