Colorado Attorney General Candidates

Summary

Both Stan Garnett & John Suthers were unopposed in their primary and so this campaign is just getting started. John is the incumbent A.G. and Stan is a D.A. so both have the necessary experience for the job.

I think we have two elected positions where we expect the office holder to act in a non-partisan manner, Secretary of State and Attorney General. The Attorney General's job is to represent all people in the state equitably and fairly because he brings the power of the state to enforce the rule of law.

I think John Suthers has violated that expectation - twice. First he joined the bogus lawsuit against healthcare reform that had no standing and was a political statement by a number of Republican AGs. It would be fine if John stated he disagreed with the bill, but to put the power of his office behind a political effort was a misuse of his office.

Second, his office was tasked with writing the regulations for the payday lenders. He took in substantial contributions from the payday lenders and then issued regulations so far outside what the legislation required that the bill's sponsors publicly called him out. The A.G. should not write regulations based on contributions.

Stan Garnett [D]

Stan Garnett is the District Attorney for Boulder County where he has been doing a superb job and has been scrupulously fair as well as significantly improved the efficiency of the office. Stan is clearly qualified and would make the A.G. office more focused on what it can do to help the people of Colorado.

If you want an A.G. who will be fair and even-handed and/or an A.G. who will focus more on what the people of this state need, then Stan should get your vote.

John Suthers [R]

John Suthers has been our Attorney General for the last 6 years (appointed for the first 2). Until recently he was viewed as doing a good job by Republicans and Democrats. But in the last couple of months that all went haywire, first with the two misuses of his office listed above, and then with...

John Suthers was previously the U.S. Attorney for Colorado. At that time he approved the temporary release of convicted felon Scott Kimball, an individual who one judge had stated should never be released. John spent 5 minutes reviewing the request, approved it, and provided no oversight of Kimball after he was released (details here - it's awful).

Scott Kimball then murdered 4 people.

I think John Suthers has shown that he is not responsible enough to be A.G and that he will use the full legal power of the state to favor his personal political agenda and reward campaign contributors.

• Please go to The Choices for the Colorado State Races for more.