He attended Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho, for a year and transferred to the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, graduating in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.

Jones then earned a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law in 1967.

[6][7] Jones was elected the state's attorney general as a Republican in 1982, and was re-elected unopposed in 1986.

[8] He ran for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jim McClure in 1990, but was defeated in the primary by Congressman Larry Craig,[9] and returned to his private law practice in 1991.

We have got to get away from this authoritarian streak that has infected the Idaho Republican Party, as well as a good part of the nation, because it’s absolutely tearing our country apart.