CACHE COUNTY – Logan attorney J. Brett Chambers emerged as the favored candidate for interim county attorney during a special election held by Cache County Republicans on Mar. 7.
In a non-binding straw pole vote by delegates to the GOP Central Committee, Chambers won 46 percent of the more than 140 ballots cast. Also in contention were incumbent Acting County Attorney Dane Murray with 32 percent of the GOP vote and local attorney Chris Daines with 21 percent.
Under state law, however, the Cache County Republicans will forward the names of up to three nominees to the Cache County Council to decide who will assume the role of interim county attorney until the end of 2026.
The nominations of Chambers, Daines and Murray were affirmed by a voice vote during the GOP Central Committee meeting held at the Riverwoods Conference Center.
The County Council selection process for interim county attorney is slated to take place during the next regular meeting of that panel on Mar. 10.
Prior to the straw vote, GOP Chair Natalie Levi urged her fellow Republicans to carefully weight their options among the candidates, noting that the party’s faithful had been obliged to go to the time, trouble and expense of conducting 12 special elections to fill vacant county posts since 2011.
In their remarks to the assembled delegates, both challengers focused on the rapid turnover in the county attorney’s office, which resulted five different individuals holding that post in the past five years.
“That’s not normal,” according to Chambers, “and it’s not good for the county to have that kind of turnover.”
Chambers also observed that the budget of the county attorney’s office had grown from $1.5 million in 2019 to more than double that amount ($3.5 million) in 2025, while Cache County’s population grew by only 17,000 residents (about 13 percent) in the same period.
Daines went so far as to say that the county attorney’s office was “sick,” suffering from years of unstable and inexperienced leadership.
In his remarks, Murray defended the attorney’s office and his role in “ … helping to make Cache County one of the safest and strongest communities in America.”
Murray also contrasted his experience with that of Chambers and Daines, who both specialize in administrative law, while he has been in court “… prosecuting violent crimes, crimes against women and children, drug distribution that poisons our community and fraud that affects our most vulnerable citizens…”
In January, former County Attorney K. Taylor Sorensen resigned his county post effective Feb. 8 to return to private practice.
To temporarily fill that vacancy, Murray was named acting county attorney by members of the Cache County Council on Feb. 10.
At their upcoming meeting on Mar. 10, the council members will interview and select a candidate to fill the remainder of Sorensen’s unexpired term of office until December of 2026.
Cache County voters will pick a permanent county attorney during the midterm election balloting in November.
During the filing period for candidates in the upcoming 2026 election that closed Jan. 8, Chambers, Daines and Murray all signaled their intent to run in that countywide balloting.