[R]ep. Janssen Willhoit, R-St. Johnsbury, said Tuesday that he will run for attorney general against incumbent TJ Donovan in the November election, assuming the Republican Party nominates him at a meeting on Wednesday.
Willhoit, a defense attorney, said that he received a call from Vermont GOP chair Deb Billado this week asking him to run, and that he decided after speaking with his wife to accept the offer.
Billado confirmed Willhoit’s nomination in a text message Tuesday night. “Yes he is running,” she wrote.
The party’s initial nominee for attorney general was H. Brooke Paige, who put his name forward for six offices in the Republican primary, four of which had no other entrants. He won all of those candidacies, including in contested races for the U.S. House and Senate.
Paige said that his plan from the beginning was to hold those places for willing and qualified candidates that he hoped would emerge before the general election, rather than cede the spots to Democrats who got write-in votes.
Having vacated five of those seats on Friday — Paige will still run against Democratic Secretary of State Jim Condos for that position — the Republican Party now has until Friday to submit replacement candidates.
Jack Moulton, executive director of the Vermont Republican Party, told Seven Days last week that candidates who lost to Paige in the primaries for federal office — Lawrence Zupan, Jasdeep Pannu and Rocky De La Fuente — were still interested in the nomination.
Paige has said he hopes former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Dan Feliciano will get his spot in the U.S. Senate race against Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and has been open about not wanting those who lost to him in the primaries take his spot in the general election.
“I have little faith that these folks will select ‘new’ winners instead of just giving the voters a couple of ‘retreads !’” he wrote on Facebook of Republican Party leaders.
Willhoit announced during the last legislative session that he would not be seeking another term in the House, in order to spend more time with his family.
He said Tuesday that the position of attorney general would allow him to meet his family’s financial needs.
“The shortened campaign cycle is easier for the family,” he said. “If I am elected then it is a professional job, a job I will make a salary doing, and be able to care for my family.”
He said he had already called Donovan about his plan to enter the race and informed him that he planned to run an “issues-based” campaign if nominated.
Willhoit said two of those issues would be using the attorney general’s office to ensure that Vermonters had a more transparent and accountable government, and to reform the criminal justice system to better serve juveniles and adults.
Before moving to Vermont for a career in law, Willhoit spent five years in a prison in Kentucky for cheating investors out of tens of thousands of dollars. He was eventually pardoned by the governor of Kentucky, according to a profile in Seven Days.
As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Willhoit was an outspoken advocate for criminal justice reform and legislative efforts to help rehabilitate convicts.
