Judge awards nearly $80K in attorney fees for Idahoans for Open Primaries...
The Idaho Supreme Court has ordered the attorney general and secretary of state to pay the Open Primaries supporters nearly $80,000 in attorney fees.
The court entered the order Monday for Attorney General Raúl Labrador and Secretary of State Phil McGrane to pay $79,968 to Idahoans for Open Primaries, after it ruled against the officers in August for Labrador’s ballot titles.
The court ruled that Labrador acted “without a reasonable basis in law in this matter,” the substitute opinion states.
“The Attorney General’s short and general ballot titles contained a blatant misstatement concerning what the Initiative would require,” the opinion states. “The general title failed to fully and accurately explain how the ranked choice voting method would work. Finally, both ballot titles instead contain the never-before used term ‘nonparty blanket primary.’”
The court awarded attorney fees but declined the petitioners’ request to prohibit Labrador’s office to write the new titles and declined to extend the deadline for gathering signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.
