Give Underwood the job

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, preparing to anoint an attorney general to take over for poisonous slug Eric Schneiderman, wants all applications in by 5 p.m. Friday. Peel away the facade of a merit-driven process and you find a backroom in which Heastie and the rest of the Democratic-controlled Assembly prepare to pick the AG they like best using who-knows-what criteria, giving one politician incumbency and the precious inside track to victory. End this charade right now. One of the applications sent to Heastie comes from Acting Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who had been serving as solicitor general until Schneiderman resigned in disgrace.

She is the most well-qualified attorney general since the post was established in 1777. She has no interest in standing for election.

Heastie must shred the other applications forthwith. Then, let democracy — real democracy — kick in.

Anyone who wants to run for the next fouryear term can either seek a party nomination or collect petitions with at least 15,000 signatures. The voters will get to decide whom they prefer in a primary, and then again in a November general election.

For now, New York is more than lucky to have Underwood, a legal superstar with five decades of experience. The valedictorian of one the nation’s top law schools, Georgetown, she was then a Supreme Court clerk and Yale Law professor.

Underwood worked in senior jobs in the district attorney offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, as well as for the Brooklyn U.S. attorney.

For three years, she served as deputy U.S. solicitor general, then as U.S. solicitor general, arguing the federal government’s case before the Supreme Court.

For more than a decade, she’s been doing that job for New York State, to universal acclaim.

Rumors abound that Assembly support was coalescing behind Public Advocate Tish James, as part of an elaborate deal by which Heastie would help his fellow Bronxite, Borough President Ruben Diaz, by removing one would-be 2021 mayoral contender from the field.

This is no way to decide who becomes the state’s top legal officer. Give Underwood the job today. Tomorrow, let the voters decide.