Three Democratic lawyers want to be elected the next Maine attorney general.

Rep. John Brautigam of Falmouth, Rep. Sean Faircloth of Bangor and Rep. Janet Mills of Farmington are waging their campaigns before a select audience: the distinguished members of the state Legislature. While most other states elect their attorneys general by popular vote, Maine is the only state in the country in which the Legislature picks the attorney general.

Though unusual, that's not a bad way to choose the state's top legal officer. Initially, the Maine constitution gave the governor the power to appoint the attorney general, which meant that it was unlikely the attorney general would act as a check on executive power because it's a rare appointee who finds it easy to bite the hand that feeds him. Wyoming and Alaska still allow their governor to appoint the attorney general, and the limitation of this approach was recently on display in Alaska when that state's top lawyer tried to block a legislative investigation of his boss, Gov. Sarah Palin.

The method of appointing the Maine attorney general changed in 1856, when the constitution was amended to take that power away from the governor and give it to the Legislature.

Since then, many, if not most, of the state's attorneys general have come from the ranks of the Legislature. That's where current Attorney General Steve Rowe served before he won the post, as well as recent AG's Andrew Ketterer, Michael Carpenter, James Tierney, Joe Brennan and Jon Lund.

All three people vying for the attorney general job are members of the current, 123rd Legislature, though only one of them, Mills, is slated to return to the Statehouse as a lawmaker when the new, 124th Legislature convenes.

We're a little concerned about just how parochial and insider-ish this all seems. The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the state, representing the interests of all Mainers. He or she must run what is essentially a large public-interest law firm, setting budgets and agendas and skillfully managing 200 employees including a team of attorneys who serve as counsel for all the departments in state government. The attorney general must be fair, have good judgment and be tempermentally suited to a high-pressure job that requires both big thinking and attention to detail.

But this method of selection functionally limits candidates to sitting or former lawmakers. Surely, there are a few equally qualified lawyers outside of the Statehouse who would bring strong resumes to the job? Or perhaps, knowing that it's hard to break into the club, those potential candidates don't even bother to compete.

At the very least, lawmakers can reassure voters that it's not a popularity contest that gives the prize to the favorite candidate of the majority party. They can do that by adopting a more transparent process, asking candidates, for example, to fill out questionnaires regarding their background, the identity of current and past clients, whether they have pending or resolved complaints against them with the state Bar Association and what their goals are if elected.

That information could then be made available to the public, to help them in evaluating both the candidates as well as the judgment of lawmakers who, ultimately, make the selection of the attorney general.