Please, Attorney General Labrador, stop wasting Idaho taxpayer dollars | Opinion

Chalk up another decision in the loss column for Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador — and for taxpayers.

Idaho Fourth District Court Judge Jason Scott on Tuesday awarded the State Board of Education $242,726 in costs and attorney fees for having to defend itself against an open-meeting lawsuit Labrador filed over the purchase of the University of Phoenix.

We’re no fans of the University of Phoenix deal. In fact, we’ve called on the State Board of Education to kill it.

We’re also no fans of secrecy in government, and it’s clear the State Board of Education didn’t hold enough public deliberation in its purchase of the University of Phoenix.

But Labrador was barking up the wrong tree by suing his own client. While the board should have had more public debate before making its decision, it was within the state’s open meetings laws to meet behind closed doors to hear details about the deal over concerns about competing bids, which could have driven up costs and cost taxpayers more.

Making matters worse in this case was the fact that Labrador had a privileged conversation with Board of Education officials, who reasonably thought they were speaking with Labrador in his role as the board’s attorney. Then Labrador played the old bait and switch, and informed the board — after that conversation — that he was going to sue it.

Whether Labrador made the misstep out of malice or sheer incompetence, it doesn’t really matter. The outcome was an L.

We should note that Labrador has appealed the ruling to the Idaho Supreme Court, and the court costs are also subject to appeal.

But it’s another item in Labrador’s lengthening laundry list of legal losses, some of which are still working their way through higher courts.

In November, after being disqualified from litigating a case he brought against another of the attorney general’s own clients — this time the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, over childhood education grants — the special prosecutor assigned to the case withdrew the suit.

While Health and Welfare wanted the attorney general’s office to pay $186,000 in attorney costs, it ended up being ordered to pay $9,500, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.

Also in November, the state Controller’s Office determined that Labrador improperly paid attorney Mitch Toryanski $16,000 in overtime pay.

Another L.

Let’s not forget when the Idaho Supreme Court ordered Labrador to rewrite the title of the ranked-choice voting ballot initiative, ruling that Labrador’s titles were likely to cause prejudice against the measure.

It came as no surprise, because Labrador was clearly biased against it from the get-go, posting on social media as soon as the initiative was announced that it was part of “bad ideas coming from liberal outside groups.”

It couldn’t have been too difficult for the justices to sniff that one out.

Another L.

When he ran for attorney general two years ago, Labrador said he was going to fight for the taxpayers. In reality, he’s fighting for himself. And we taxpayers are the ones losing, by picking up the bill.

He also said he was going to fight for Idaho values, and loves to mention values over and over in his news releases. He should spend less time thinking about whatever he considers to be Idaho values and more time thinking about his job, which is the law. Maybe he’d have more cases in the win column.

He should also spend less time joining other states’ lawsuits, briefs and complaints, and more time worrying about what’s happening right here in Idaho.

Instead, he’s picking fights with Idaho agencies — and losing.

Labrador defeated longtime incumbent Lawrence Wasden, who said part of the job of the attorney general was to call balls and strikes — a characterization that Labrador balked at, saying the AG needed to be more aggressive and, as one legislator put it, throw a curve ball once in a while.

Unfortunately for Idaho taxpayers, Labrador is throwing a lot of wild pitches.