AG’s office: Most lawmakers want ‘accurate, objective legal advice’

Bob Cooper, spokesman for Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s office, had this response today to Rep. Vito Barbieri’s introduction of legislation to create a new “Office of Legislative Counsel” so the Legislature could hire its own lawyers: “Well, it’s a policy choice whether the Legislature wants to get legal advice from the attorney general or from its own lawyers,” he said. “I think the majority of legislators are going to think about whether they want accurate, objective legal advice that helps them write laws that stand up in court, or if they just want lawyers that’ll tell them what they want to hear, even if that means that some of their laws get struck down, and the taxpayers pay for the lawyers on both sides of the fight in that instance.”