John A. ("Jack") LaSota is a former Arizona Attorney General (1977–1978). LaSota also served as Bruce Babbitt's Chief of Staff when the former was governor of Arizona. He is a lobbyist for the firm LaSota & Peters, P.L.C.

Career

LaSota is a member of the Arizona State Bar. He has drafted

statute A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...

s, including telephonic search warrant and

electronic eavesdropping Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...

laws, many of which are still on the books. He spent three years at the

Arizona State University College of Law The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (ASU Law) is one of the professional graduate schools at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona. The school is located in the Beus Center for Law and Society on ASU's downtown Phoenix campus. The law ...

as a faculty member and assistant dean, during which tenure his principal role was to draft and circulate nationwide to over 500 agencies pioneering ''Model Rules for Law Enforcement''.

Attorney General

After Bruce Babbitt succeeded

Wesley Bolin Wesley Bolin (July 1, 1909 – March 4, 1978) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the 15th governor of Arizona between 1977 and 1978. His five months in office mark the shortest term in office for any Arizona governor. Pri ...

as governor, he appointed LaSota to replace him as Attorney General. Members of the Arizona senate, led by Senate President Ed Sawyer, sued LaSota arguing he was statutorily barred from serving. The senators alleged LaSota was barred by A.R.S. 41-191, which stated that "(t)he attorney general shall have been for not less than five years immediately preceding the date of taking office a practicing attorney before the supreme court of the state." While LaSota was employed at the Arizona State University School of Law his bar membership lapsed to retired status and, as a retired lawyer, he could not practice law or hold himself out as eligible to do so. The court voided the statute.State ex rel. Sawyer v. LaSota, 119 Ariz. 253 (1978)

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lasota, Jack Arizona Attorneys General Living people Year of birth missing (living people)