Former Republican Idaho attorneys general endorse Democrat in attempt to unseat Raúl Labrador

Two former Republican attorneys general in Idaho — along with dozens of former lawyers at the office — on Thursday endorsed the Democratic challenger in the race for the state’s top attorney.

Lori Hickman, who’s trying to unseat Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador, said she wishes the race was nonpartisan. The race, she said, comes down to “who’s the best attorney to be the chief legal officer for the state of Idaho.”

“I’m trying to restore the tradition of sound legal advice, regardless of who the clients are or their political affiliations,” Hickman said at a news conference announcing the endorsements. “So I’m running as a Democrat because my opponent’s a Republican.”

Hickman stood outside the old Ada County Courthouse across the street from the Idaho State Capitol, beside a pool of attorneys who she said collectively have hundreds of years of experience.

Hickman is an Idaho attorney with two decades of experience, including at global tech company Micron, and has served as board chair of Mormon Women for Ethical Government. 

Labrador is a former Idaho congressman and an immigration attorney. He became the state’s attorney general in 2023, after defeating the state’s longest-serving attorney general, Lawrence Wasden, in the Republican primary election.

Wasden was among the pack endorsing Hickman. At the press conference, he and former Idaho Republican Attorney General Jim Jones, who also served as a state Supreme Court justice, cheered by her side. 

In a Republican-controlled state, Hickman’s election bid faces tough odds. Voters in the state last elected a Democrat to statewide office in 2002, for the superintendent of public instruction. Idaho’s last Democratic attorney general was Larry Echohawk in 1995. 

In a statement, the Labrador campaign seemed unsurprised by the endorsements. “Lawrence Wasden, Jim Jones, and disgruntled former employees. Who would have thought?” the attorney general’s re-election campaign said.

The list of endorsers, provided by Hickman’s campaign, included at least eight attorneys whose service in the office ended shortly before or after Labrador was sworn into office in January 2023, according to the Idaho Capital Sun’s review of Transparent Idaho, a state employment dataset. 

“They’ve been in the office. They know how it should run, and they know it is not running in that way at the present time,” Jones said. 

Former AG reads resignation letter from former Idaho deputy attorney general 

A handful of the former attorneys who left under Labrador’s leadership were legally representing the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, an agency that Labrador soon investigated for alleged grant mishandling. Jones read excerpts from the resignation letter of one of those attorneys, Madison Miles, who endorsed Hickman.

In the letter, which was addressed to Labrador, Miles wrote that she could “no longer be associated with your blatant attempt to provide subpar and even unethical representation to the Department of Health and Welfare.” 

Daphne Huang, a former deputy attorney general who gave the state health agency legal advice about the grants and who Labrador’s office fired, endorsed Hickman. Huang’s whistleblower lawsuit against the Attorney General’s Office, dismissed by a state district court judge, is on appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court. 

Jones also cited a lawsuit that came after a legal opinion Labrador issued to a state legislator. The 2023 opinion said that medical professionals who refer or prescribe abortion pills to pregnant patients across state lines are subject to criminal penalties under Idaho’s strict abortion ban. But years later, Labrador and two county prosecutors reached a legal agreement with a regional Planned Parenthood organization to not prosecute some Idaho doctors for out-of-state abortion referrals. 

In an interview, Wasden said his endorsement of Hickman is his first endorsement in the race since he was defeated. He said he was issuing the endorsement now out of importance to “recognize the rule of law.”

“The rule of law really is the issue that separates us from any other country in the world. That is, that the law applies to everyone, and it’s not based upon someone’s personal political view,” Wasden, who had served as Idaho’s attorney general for 20 years, said. “The Constitution, the statutes apply to everyone.”

Wasden said he hopes his endorsement encourages voters to look at the race and “make an honest assessment of what the attorney general is supposed to do.”

Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect that Larry Echohawk was the last Democratic attorney general in Idaho in 1995.