Idaho Attorney General Wasden announces run for sixth term - East Idaho News
East Idaho Elects

Idaho Attorney General Wasden announces run for sixth term

  Published at

BOISE (AP) — Idaho Republican Attorney General Lawrence Wasden will seek a sixth term as the state’s chief legal officer, he announced Monday.

Wasden is seeking to extend his run as the longest-serving attorney general in the state’s history.

Three other Republicans are in the race, including former U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, who announced his candidacy last week.

Wasden in a statement emphasized his desire to provide clear, objective legal counsel based on the law, which he refers to as calling legal balls and strikes fairly, and describes as his guiding principle.

“An attorney general does not provide their clients or their state any value by giving them the legal counsel they want to hear or that is politically convenient,” Wasden said in a statement. “Rather, my goal has always been to provide counsel that is soundly rooted in the Rule of Law. This approach has served Idaho well and it’s important to maintain this consistency in 2023 and beyond.”

Wasden, who holds degrees from Brigham Young University and the University of Idaho, joined the attorney general’s office in 1989 as a deputy assigned to the Idaho State Tax Commission. Before that, he was a prosecutor in Canyon and Owyhee counties.

Labrador served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before running for governor in 2018 and losing in the primary to Brad Little, who went on to become governor.

Labrador is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus who unsuccessfully ran for majority leader in 2014.

Two other Republicans, Dennis Boyles and Arthur Macomber, are also in the race.

SUBMIT A CORRECTION