OPINION: Raul Labrador should follow Clint’s advice

Almost a year ago this week, Republican Raul Labrador told the Lewiston Tribune’s William L. Spence how he planned to improve upon outgoing Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s performance.

He would get better staff.

And, Labrador said, he would get better results.

“The Attorney General’s Office needs to have better lawyers,” Labrador said. “That’s really my No. 1 priority. We seem to lose a lot of cases in the state.”

How’s that been working out?

Start with staffing.

That several of Wasden’s subordinates would choose to leave office with him is not altogether surprising. But as the Idaho Statesman noted earlier this year, 33 employees — including 26 attorneys — departed before the end of May and the turnover has continued since.

Of the eight deputy attorneys general assigned to the Department of Health and Welfare, six have left.

One of them, Daphne Huang, has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. She contends speaking up about the ethical breaches and violations of law under Labrador’s direction led to her dismissal.

The turnover even extends to Labrador’s brain trust.

First to go was Labrador’s initial chief deputy — David Dewhirst — who was out the door in May. He chose to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and, as Labrador’s office explained at the time, “to be near aging relatives.”

Then came the departures announced Oct. 6:

Solicitor General Theo Wald.

Communications Director Beth Cahill.

Chief of Staff Tim Frost.

Lincoln Wilson, chief of Labrador’s civil and constitutional defense division.

Wold’s departure was explained as a personal ambition. He wanted to serve his country and chose to train as a commissioned intelligence officer for the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

Left unanswered is why Cahill, Frost and Wilson chose to go — and why all four of Labrador’s top aides would leave within the same time frame.

And how about the results inside the courtroom?

Here’s a sample:

The Idaho Supreme Court has ordered Labrador and Secretary of State Phil McGrane to pay almost $80,000 in attorneys fees to Idahoan for Open Primaries. Labrador tried to impose biased ballot titles that would encourage people to take his side against a proposed 2024 ballot measure that would reopen the pivotal GOP primary that has been restricted to registered Republicans for more than a decade.

In one of her final acts before heading out the door, Cahill spun the $80,000 award as less than the “excessive” amount sought by the plaintiffs. “The Supreme Court rejected their full request and ordered a more reasonable amount.”

This “reasonable amount” exceeds Idaho’s median household income by almost $11,000.

Ada County District Court Judge Jason Scott booted Labrador personally off the lawsuit he’s waging against the State Board of Education. Scott said the attorney general had a conflict of interest in suing his own client over an alleged violation of the Open Meeting Law when the board agreed to the University of Idaho’s acquisition of the University of Phoenix. The judge also sided with State Board Executive Director Matt Freeman, who said he believed Labrador was engaging in attorney-client privilege when he raised the issue. Only later did Labrador declare his intention to sue the State Board.

“The court finds Executive Director Freeman’s version more plausible,” Scott wrote. “The court considers it likelier than not that Attorney General Labrador’s disclosure of the impending suit came at the end of the call, not the outset. ... So, as things stand, the Board of Regents is now in the awkward position of being sued by someone who previously engaged it in a privileged conversation regarding the very subject of this litigation.”

Meanwhile, Scott has ordered Labrador’s office to stop carpet bombing the State Board with excessive requests to depose its members.

Not long after that ruling came down, it turned out that Labrador had led the State Land Board, on which he serves, into three closed-door meetings, including one that violated the Open Meeting Law.

Fourth District Court Judge Lynn Norton blocked Labrador’s office from pursuing its lawsuit against the Department of Health and Welfare over how the agency allocated federal child care grants. That came after a deputy attorney general told the agency it had been operating within the law.

The ruling means state taxpayers will pay a private attorney at private rates to pursue the case against a private attorney at private rates to defend the state department.

With Labrador, you always knew you were getting someone who was more politician than lawyer. But this level of chaos raises questions about whether a fellow who never ran anything larger than a congressional staff or a private law office is up to this task — let alone his ambition to one day become governor.

Or, as Clint Eastwood once said a half-century ago: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” — M.T.