Rufus Lige Edmisten (born July 12, 1941) is an American attorney who served as North Carolina Secretary of State, Attorney General, and was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1984. He is currently a lawyer in private practice. Life and career Edmisten was born on July 12, 1941 in Boone, North Carolina to Walter F. Edmisten and Nell Hollar Edmisten. He graduated from Appalachian High School in 1959. He earned an undergraduate degree in political science with honors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law Center in Washington, D.C., where he served on the Law Review. During law school, he joined the Capitol Hill staff of North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, where he served as the Counsel to Senator Ervin's Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and as Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers. In 1973-1974, Edmisten was the Deputy Chief Counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, which Ervin chaired. With Terry Lenzner, an assistant counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee, Edmisten served the subpoena to the White House for the Watergate tapes. It was the first time in history that a Congressional Committee served a subpoena on a sitting president. During his time working for Senator Ervin, Edmisten participated in important legislative initiatives, such as securing constitutional rights for American Indians and providing constitutional protections for military personnel. Following Senator Ervin's retirement in 1974, Edmisten returned to North Carolina. He was elected state attorney general in 1974 and served in that post for ten years. Edmisten was the Democratic nominee for governor in 1984, losing to Republican James G. Martin, a loss attributed to Martin's endorsements by Edmisten's Democratic primary rivals. After his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, Edmisten practiced law with Reagan H. Weaver for four years. In the 1988 and 1992 elections, Edmisten won the office of Secretary of State. As Secretary of State he broadened securities oversight in an effort to protect investors, and worked with the General Assembly to craft a law to establish Limited Liability Companies in North Carolina. In 1996 Edmisten resigned from office after an audit of the Secretary of State's office led to a State Bureau of Investigations inquiry into several alleged abuses of office. The investigation, which involved more than 100 interviews and culminated in a 3000-page report, exonerated Edmisten and his staff from all the