Criticizing me for hiring the ADF is unfair. Idaho citizens deserve the best defense | Opinion

Winston Churchill is often credited with the famous aphorism, “History is written by the winners.”

Although the aphorism is right, some Idaho news outlets mistakenly believe history is written by the whiners. Over the last 12 months, the same political critics who opposed my election continue to be quoted by the press with personal and petty criticisms that aren’t grounded in the law but based entirely on bias and animus.

The latest is a bogus controversy dealing with my office’s successful handling of Idaho’s Defense of Life Act before the federal courts. Let me give you some history.

In 2020, the Idaho Legislature enacted the Defense of Life Act to put the lives of women and their unborn children first, preventing physicians from ending an unborn child’s life unless doing so is critical to save the life of the mother. Contrary to many misrepresentations in the press, pregnant women in Idaho receive life-saving care under the new law, including if they’re facing an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage.

But in August of 2022, the Biden administration decided to sue Idaho to impose its liberal agenda on our state. The Biden Department of Justice is manipulating a longstanding federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), to get its way. Never mind that EMTALA was enacted to ensure people without insurance aren’t denied care in emergency rooms, but it doesn’t even mention abortion. In fact, EMTALA explicitly states that emergency room doctors must protect pregnant women and their “unborn child[ren].”

Just this month, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an Idaho federal judge and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals when it allowed Idaho’s law prioritizing the lives of women and children to go fully into effect and announced it would hear our case this April. The Court also issued a stay of the lower court’s ruling signaling that it believes Idaho is likely to prevail on the merits and is expected to correct Biden’s overreach.

Despite this remarkable win, these same critics are misleadingly claiming that the experienced Supreme Court advocates assisting my office to provide the very best defense for our law before the nation’s highest court are controversial. Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the law firms assisting the Office of Attorney General is Cooper & Kirk, which has represented clients like Ford Motor Company, Microsoft, Boeing, Bank of America and many others. The National Law Journal has recognized them as “one of the most influential firms in Washington,” and they are widely respected for their Supreme Court practice and experience litigating complex regulatory and constitutional disputes.

The other law firm assisting us, Alliance Defending Freedom, has significant experience successfully litigating complex constitutional and administrative law cases and has an impressive track record at the U.S. Supreme Court with 15 victories in the past 12 years. ADF regularly works with state attorneys general across the country to defend the rule of law and freedom for all Americans. They have agreed to assist the state at no cost to the taxpayers. Unsurprisingly, those who criticize ADF are relying on smears from a discredited organization that critics allege has become “more of a partisan progressive hit operation than a civil rights watchdog,” as Politico reported.

I am proud of the legal team I have assembled. Three of the attorneys have clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court and, collectively, have argued 25 cases before the high court. The Supreme Court hears roughly 80 cases per year of the thousands they’re asked to review, and they chose to hear ours. So, the results speak for themselves.

It is common for state attorneys general to retain outside legal counsel; my predecessor regularly hired outside counsel, without any criticism, and my fellow Republican and Democrat attorneys general across the country do the same. It’s also common to hire additional support for a case, particularly when specific subject matter expertise is needed, or additional appellate experience would be in the best interest of the case.

I ran for Attorney General to rebuild the people’s confidence in their government and renew the belief that those charged with defending the rule of law will always protect Idaho against an overreaching federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. The Office of Attorney General has a duty to defend the laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives. Despite what critics might say, my commitment to you today remains the same as when I took the oath of office last year—I will hire the best lawyers available to defend the rule of law because that’s what you elected me to do. This is the kind of leadership I promised to bring to this job, and history will show that Idaho made the right choice in trusting me with this position.

Raúl Labrador is the attorney general of Idaho.