Raúl Labrador or Tom Arkoosh? Idaho Statesman’s pick for Idaho attorney general
If elected Idaho attorney general, Republican Raúl Labrador promises to be a conservative partner with the Republican-dominated Legislature.
We have no doubt he would be. And that’s what worries us.
The Idaho Statesman editorial board endorses his opponent Democrat Tom Arkoosh for Idaho attorney general. Arkoosh will run the attorney general’s office with skill, capability and reliability, working to preserve the individual liberties of Idahoans on a whole range of issues, from reproductive rights and voting rights to same-sex marriage and transgender rights.
Labrador is correct that the Idaho Constitution doesn’t require that the attorney general has to be non-partisan. It’s an elected office in which candidates run on party lines.
It is clear that Labrador would base decisions on partisan politics and become an activist attorney general seeking to strip individual rights based on the latest Republican outrage or culture war issue.
During an Idaho Public Television debate with Arkoosh, Labrador said he believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He told the editorial board that as attorney general, he would have joined Texas’ failed lawsuit against other states over the way they handled their elections, arguing that if Wisconsin didn’t follow the U.S. Constitution, that was an infringement on the rights of Idaho citizens, giving the Idaho attorney general standing.
In Labrador’s mind, that’s brilliant legal maneuvering. In reality, that’s the kind of thinking that gets thrown out of court faster than you can write a six-figure check for legal fees.
Extremist Idaho legislators have already proffered legislation, based on the Big Lie, that would disenfranchise untold numbers of legal voters and at the very least make it more difficult to vote. Labrador clearly would go along with such schemes.
“We’re in dangerous times right now,” Labrador told the editorial board. “And we have treacherous times, and it’s not the time to trust somebody who doesn’t really have a record.”
We agree that we’re in dangerous times right now, but we probably don’t agree with Labrador on what those dangers are.
Dangerous times means stripping individual rights to make reproductive health care decisions, but Labrador would defend Idaho’s laws to take away those rights. Dangerous times are Idaho legislators regulating women’s birth control. We fear Labrador, in being a good “conservative partner” with those legislators, would go along.
If elected Idaho attorney general, Labrador would be primed for a national outfit like the National Organization for Marriage to come into Idaho and make our state a test case for other issues, such as same-sex marriage.
The Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court has signaled that same-sex marriage might be vulnerable to being overturned on the same lack of a constitutional right to privacy protection argument that overturned Roe v. Wade. It’s not too far-fetched to envision a day when an attorney general such as Labrador is called upon to put Idaho out as a test case to have gay marriage overturned.
A former state legislator, a former congressman and the former chair of the Idaho Republican Party, Labrador understands how the system and the party work from the inside. He said he’d work with legislators to help craft legislation that accomplishes their goals and would better withstand legal challenges; it’s that kind of political meddling that will get Idaho taxpayers in trouble and lead to attempts to strip individual liberties in these dangerous times.
We have no such fears with Arkoosh, a longtime trial attorney with years of courtroom experience and legal expertise. His plain reading of the law and his “tell it like it is” approach will protect individual liberties in Idaho and serve as a warning against bad legislation. Labrador would only encourage such bad behavior.