Wade Church (May 4, 1908 – December 4, 2002) was an American politician who served as the

Attorney General of Arizona The Arizona Attorney General is the chief legal officer of the State of Arizona, in the United States. This state officer is the head of the Arizona Department of Law, more commonly known as the Arizona Attorney General's Office. The state attorne ...

from 1959 to 1961. Church is the most recent incumbent attorney general to lose a general election in Arizona. Church graduated Valedictorian from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1933 and from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

in 1938. In 1941 he became an assistant city attorney for the City of Phoenix. He was elected Arizona Attorney General in 1958. He was defeated the following year by republican Robert Pickrell.

AFL-CIO speech

On May 7, 1959, Mr. Church delivered a speech in

Flagstaff, Arizona Flagstaff ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Coconino County, Arizona, Coconino County in northern Arizona, in the southwestern United States. In 2019, the city's estimated population was 75,038. Flagstaff's combined metropolitan area has ...

to the delegates of an AFL-CIO convention. Four days later, an editorial, prominently placed on the front page, rather than on the editorial pages, appeared in the '' Arizona Republic'' in 84-point font. The editorial accused Church of being a communist. Church sued the newspaper, won, and in 1968 the jury's award was upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court. In 1976, Church finally received almost $650,000 in libel damages.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Church, Wade 1908 births 2002 deaths Arizona Attorneys General Arizona Democrats University of California, Los Angeles alumni Harvard Law School alumni