Attorney general’s role debated

BOISE – Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden says he’s shown he’s willing to take on the tough jobs, from prosecuting Idaho officials on public corruption charges to going after the University of Idaho’s University Place scandal.

“It’s what justice demands,” Wasden said.

His election opponent, Boise attorney Robert “Bob” Wallace, was galvanized to run by the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment that’s on the November ballot, and by strong disagreements with the legal opinion Wasden provided to lawmakers on the issue last winter.

“They’re trying to outlaw private familial arrangements,” Wallace said. He believes that violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law – so Idaho’s amendment could be overturned.

“It’s also wrong,” Wallace said.

Wasden responded, “I support the amendment, but my view is that I shouldn’t advance my personal philosophical choice. My job is to give the legal answer.”

He said the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on the issue, and it’s not clear how the court would come down.

Wasden’s lengthy legal opinion on the issue last winter responded to specific questions posed by the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, but gave no opinion on the constitutionality of the legislation itself. Wasden said lawmakers never asked him whether their amendment was constitutional.

Wallace, however, believes the attorney general should take a more proactive role whether asked or not.

He said he would speak out to stop lawmakers from moving forward with something that he feels is improper.

Wasden said as attorney general his role is simply to respond to the lawmakers’ legal questions, not to take a stand on issues.

Wasden has been Idaho’s attorney general for four years, after previously serving as a top deputy in the office. His tenure has been marked by numerous public corruption cases, including the prosecutions of the mayor of Boise, the Twin Falls county clerk, the Preston chief of police and the Idaho Falls city prosecutor. Wasden said some were fellow Republicans and even fellow church members.

“It’s not a matter of who I know, but it’s what justice demands,” he said.

He also stood up to his own party’s lawmakers when they wanted to challenge a voter-approved initiative legalizing limited gambling on Idaho’s Indian reservations. Wasden told them his role as attorney general is to defend the state’s laws, not to challenge them.

He does have one major regret, however, from his four-year term: the handling of a long-running school lawsuit. “That’s an area where I’m not entirely satisfied,” he said. “Early on, we made some faltering steps. Those faltering steps were intended to get the case over with. We’d forgotten … that our focus ought to be on our kids.”

Wasden’s office drafted legislation that GOP leaders pushed through the Legislature in an attempt to cancel the decade-old lawsuit filed by school districts against the state over inadequate funding for school construction. It sought to instead turn the districts themselves into defendants in new lawsuits. The measure was overturned by the Idaho Supreme Court, but only after the state sued seven school districts.

“I think we need to get that issue behind us,” Wasden said. “The funding issue on the construction of school buildings really is a policy choice and funding choice that will have to be made by the Legislature.”

But as far as the cancel-the-lawsuit bill, he said, “I think we could have dealt with that differently. I think the outcome would have been different, we could’ve been able to resolve it more quickly.”

He said, “We needed to get on with the business of educating kids.”

Wallace, who has been an attorney for 30 years, touts his range of experience in the law. Wasden said his experience in the attorney general’s office allowed him to hit the ground running when he took office.

“I literally picked up my papers, walked through the doorway, sat down and transition was completed – that’s it,” Wasden said.

Wallace said he’d like to put a new focus on preventing young people from getting involved in gangs, patterned after California laws that bring schools, churches and YMCAs into the process along with law enforcement.

“Relying on law enforcement only is a mistake,” he said. “By the time kids are in juvenile courts, they’re already screwed up.”

Wallace said the gang-prevention plan is an example of his proactive approach to problems. “I’m going to work on it whether I’m elected or not,” he said.

He added, “I know how to give clear legal advice.” If he advised that legislation was unconstitutional and a majority of lawmakers still wanted to pass it, Wallace said, he’d testify against it at committee hearings and hold press conferences.

Wasden said, “Well, I think that’s basically a very different view of what the attorney general is all about. … I don’t think that the attorney general is the policymaker.”

Wasden, in his four years in office, has launched initiatives to teach parents and teens about the dangers of predators on the Internet; enlist and train beauticians to help their clients get help in domestic violence cases; and educate local government officials and the public about Idaho’s open records and meetings laws.

In the University Place case, he said, his legal action got a university trust fully repaid. The convoluted case involved a failed real estate deal in Boise for a planned branch campus of the University of Idaho.

“I think we have a pretty good story to tell over the last four years – we faced some pretty difficult issues,” he said.