Doug Wardlow

Wardlow on the floor of the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2011.

Wardlow was first elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2010. He served on the Civil Law, Judiciary Policy and Finance, and Taxes committees, and on the Taxes Subcommittee for the Property and Local Tax Division.[5] He narrowly lost his bid for reelection in 2012 to Democrat Laurie Halverson, in the newly created District 51B.[6] Wardlow wrote a bill that sought to prohibit the creation of health care exchanges that were a component of the Affordable Care Act.[7] Wardlow's bill did not become law.[7] Wardlow also unsuccessfully pushed for a state constitutional amendment (known as a "right to work" amendment) that would have banned employers and unions from requiring employees to become dues-paying union members.[7]

Wardlow worked for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy non-profit based in Scottsdale, Arizona; he left the group when he launched his bid to become Minnesota Attorney General in 2018.[7][8] In 2017, Wardlow testified in an Anoka-Hennepin school board meeting against allowing transgender students to access facilities in accordance with their gender identities,[9] stating that such policies would "expose children to members of the opposite sex in restrooms or in locker rooms."[7] Wardlow has argued that transgender students using bathrooms reflecting their gender threatens the safety and privacy of other students, and that requiring students to refer to transgender people in accordance with their gender identities violates students' free speech rights under the First Amendment.[10] In 2016, Wardlow won a federal case in which the court ruled that "a metro Detroit funeral home did not discriminate against an employee when it fired her for transitioning from a man into a woman [because] transgender individuals are not a protected class under federal employment laws [and because] the funeral home [could not] be forced to make employment decisions that go against its sincerely held religious beliefs".[11][12]

On August 14, 2018, Wardlow won the Republican primary for Attorney General of Minnesota. He faced Democratic U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison.[13] Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party candidate Noah Dilly Johnson has endorsed Ellison, but will remain on the general election ballot.[14] Wardlow had previously been endorsed by the Republican Party at its June 2, 2018 state convention.[15] Wardlow lost the election to Ellison by a 49-45% margin.[16]

During his campaign, Wardlow said he would enforce same-sex marriage laws;[4] however, Wardlow previously opposed gay marriage[17] and the Obergefell v. Hodges decision,[18] which he described in 2015 as a "tyrannical impulse".[19] Wardlow has stated that he would not join other Republican attorney generals who sued to overturn the Affordable Care Act.[4] During his campaign for Minnesota Attorney General, Wardlow stated the office is not a "policymaking position" and would refrain from anything "legislative in scope."[4]

Wardlow stated that, if elected, he would "fire 42 Democratic attorneys right off the bat" from the Attorney General's Office, leading to concern that he might politicize the office and make hiring decisions based on political loyalty rather than merit.[20]

Controversy arose around Wardlow during the 2018 campaign. Former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul Anderson remarked, after learning that Wardlow had maintained a politically conservative legal blog during his time as a law clerk, that “I found the conduct of Mr. Wardlow so egregious, so undermining of the ethics and the standards we have on the court I thought he should have been terminated immediately.”[21] In addition, a high school classmate of Wardlow's, Ryan Durant, accused Wardlow of anti-gay bullying during high school, also claiming that Wardlow had mocked him after Durant returned to school following a suicide attempt.[22]

Wardlow admitted to committing campaign finance violations in the 2018 election by exceeding his authorized spending limits by more than $46,000. Wardlow agreed to pay this amount to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board as a fine.[23]