Candidates for Colorado AG differ on office duties

Colorado’s next attorney general will inherit a lawsuit the state filed against an opioid manufacturer that seeks damages for the state’s painkiller addiction epidemic.

Phil Weiser, the Democratic candidate, wants to put the money from any settlement or award toward drug treatment programs. George Brauchler, the Republican candidate, says state lawmakers should decide where the money goes.

The contrast underscores the two candidates’ differing approaches to the role that the state’s attorney general should play in crafting policy that impacts Colorado residents.

Brauchler, a career prosecutor,

prefers to let state lawmakers and the governor’s office set policy and budgets.

Weiser, a former policy adviser in the Obama White House, is comfortable using the attorney general’s office to influence policy.

The difference will define the administration of the next attorney general, who will succeed outgoing Republican Attorney General Cynthia Coffman.

At a recent debate, Weiser listed federal issues he’s willing to get involved in as attorney general. They include challenging the administration’s practice of separating families that arrive at the border, protecting the federal Affordable Care Act and challenging the deportation of Dreamers — immigrants with legal status under the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program that was created under the Obama administration.

“Immigrants are entitled to due process,” Weiser said. The Affordable Care Act, he said, is needed because it protects people with preexisting conditions.

Brauchler has a different approach.

“One of the things you have to consider when you decide who wants to be an activist and who wants to be an attorney general is what standing do you have to take up these issues?” he said, adding that an attorney general cannot pick and choose what federal policies to oppose.

Brauchler said people wanting to change federal law should elect a new president or member of Congress, not expect an attorney general to become a “rogue warrior.”

The Republican said he would fight the federal government when it is threatening to infringe on state sovereignty. For example, that means defending Amendment 64, which Colorado voters passed in 2012 to legalize recreational marijuana, he said.

The candidates’ starkly different philosophies might stem from their different career paths.

Brauchler, 48, the district attorney in the 18th Judicial District, prosecuted the Aurora theater shooter. A colonel in the Colorado Army National Guard, he was chief of military justice for the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit, Iraq, supervising other military attorneys while deployed.

Weiser, 50, is a former dean of the University of Colorado Law School and clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Byron White and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He also worked on antitrust cases in the U.S. Department of Justice and was a policy adviser in the Obama administration.

William F. Robinson III, an 89yearold Denver attorney, is running on the Libertarian ticket.

The next attorney general will be in charge of a multidimensional operation. The office has about 480 employees and a budget of $83.5 million. The duties are wideranging and include both civil and criminal law. The office provides legal advice to the governor and state agencies.

The office doesn’t handle runofthemill criminal cases; that’s the job of the state’s 22 district attorneys. But the office can prosecute cases, particularly if they are complex and involve multiple jurisdictions. These can include drug and human trafficking. Criminal appeals also go through the office.

The office is involved in consumer protection issues such as financial fraud and Medicaid fraud.

On the civil side, attorneys handle varied cases: Utility regulation, environmental law and employment law are all part of the office’s workload.

With two very different attorneys running for office, the contrast is sharp.

“I have been in charge of government lawyers and run a $23 million budget with 225 total staff,” Brauchler said.

In addition, he said, his job requires decisionmaking on a serious level every day, sometimes on cases involving life or death. For him, that experience is needed in the AG’s office.

“The attorney general is on the hook for making decisions about when and how to exercise this massive state authority,” he said.

At times, Brauchler calls Weiser “the professor.”

But Weiser notes that running CU’s law school included managing a $25 million budget, 60 faculty, 60 adjunct faculty, 60 staff and about 500 students. While there, he also founded Silicon Flatirons, a center that focuses on technology policy and entrepreneurship with conferences and other events.

“I believe we need a creative problem solver and an innovator,” Weiser said. “So I’m not going to lean back and wait for the state to get sued. I’m going to lean in and ask, ‘How do I help the people of Colorado?’ ”

Weiser said he’d be a check against unconstitutional policies that rise from the federal level. “It is the state AGs who have said core civil rights are an issue,” he said. “I would be working to protect our constitutional rights.”

With issues like the opioid lawsuit, he is clear about his intentions.

“If the legislature were of a mind to divert that money away from the proper purpose, I would fight as hard as I could to keep it to basically help victims of a crisis,” Weiser said.

He also points to his experience as a senior adviser for technology and innovation in the Obama administration, where he worked closely with Aneesh Chopra, then the chief technology officer at the White House. In that role, they looked at issues such as modernizing the electric grid and privacy protections in the digital age.

In an interview, Chopra said Weiser’s experience there would be a benefit in the Colorado attorney general’s office and “clearly result in more economic growth and more consumer protections.”

For example, Weiser wants to drive a conversation about access to broadband in rural Colorado. Brauchler, while not opposed to rural broadband, doesn’t view that as part of the office’s job. Instead, it’s to let state policymakers craft proposals and let his office weigh in on whether they pass constitutional and legal muster, he said.

On the other hand, Brauchler’s supporters say his work with crime victims in highprofile cases would serve him well in the attorney general’s office. Theresa Hoover, the mother of Aurora theater shooting victim Jonathan “A.J.” Boik, said Brauchler was “very approachable” throughout the shooter’s trial.

“He was always making sure that we knew what was going on,” she said. “He called all of us and asked for our opinion on what we thought about how he was doing.”

One of these candidates — Phil Weiser or George Brauchler — will set the tone for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office for the next four years.