Tommy Arkoosh: Culture Warrior of Wokedom
The Democrat AG candidate pretends to be above the fray, but he promises to leave popular Idaho legislation undefended and unenforced.
Job number one for Idaho’s Attorney General is defending Idaho’s laws in court. When Idaho’s laws are challenged in federal court and in state court the AG defends them. Sometimes this means that an AG will defend laws that the AG does not personally like. So be it. That is the AG’s job.
Tommy Arkoosh, Democrat candidate for AG, has promised NOT to defend Idaho statutes that he thinks are not good policies. He would not defend them in federal court or in state court. Perhaps he would not even prosecute people who violate these laws. He claims the authority to pick and choose which Idaho laws to defend and which to disregard. This is the definition of a political attorney general.
Consider the massive contradiction in his statement about his unwillingness to defend Idaho’s abortion law. His statement:
“While the attorney general does not set policy, all Idahoans would benefit from statutes that come from good public policy ideas rather than political agendas.”
This is nonsense on stilts. Arkoosh distinguishes between “good public policy ideas” and “political agendas.” He promises to support laws that reflect “good public policy ideas” and not to defend laws reflecting “political agendas.”
The person who polices the boundary between “good public policy” and an illegitimate political agenda is setting policy, however. He is, in fact, acting like a Supreme Court or even a King, sitting outside the political system and deciding which laws are good and which are bad. In a republic, the legislature decides what is good public policy, and it can always revisit the decisions it makes. That's part of politics! In Arkoosh land, Tommy Arkoosh will determine what is good public policy—the rest of the system just advisory to him.
Arkoosh has the audacity to cough up the claim, as he did in his debate with Raúl Labrador, that he is going to “set up a law office” while Labrador wants to set up a “culture war office.”
We can learn more from Arkoosh’s statement. How will Arkoosh distinguish between a political agenda and good public policy? Arkoosh mentions Idaho’s abortion ban as reflecting a “political agenda.” Other examples can be found from his mentor and campaign finance director, Jim Jones.
In a recent article in The Hill, Jones, a Democrat campaign operative, listed Idaho laws that presumably should not be defended. According to Arkoosh and Jones, a “political agenda” includes Idaho’s Heartbeat Law; Idaho’s abortion ban; Idaho’s attempt to stop public funding that promotes abortion, any future action that might be taken to ban transgender treatments and any future action against the obscenity in public libraries. In other words, things on the conservative agenda are part of a “political agenda.”
What are “good public policy ideas”? Answer: Abortion on demand; public support of abortion on demand; transgender mutilation; smut in the libraries; etc.
Arkoosh, meek and unassuming in appearance, promises to give Idaho a most aggressive left-wing culture war office. With Jim Jones whispering in his ears, he implies that anyone who violates Idaho laws that he thinks reflect a political agenda need not worry about prosecution.
He promises to select what laws in Idaho are valid and what laws are not and to act accordingly. And the principles of the Left will guide his culture war against the Idaho people.