As Colorado’s attorney general, I am committed to serving as the People’s Lawyer. My job is to defend Colorado citizens from those who violate their rights, improve public safety and our criminal justice system, and protect our land, air and water. Over the last four years, I have worked hard to do just that for Southwestern Coloradoans.
As attorney general, I defended your right to affordable health care, legal and safe abortion care, equal rights, voting rights, and fair treatment as workers, housing tenants and consumers. In total, we recovered over $230 million in refunds and student debt relief for Coloradans. We also secured over $500 million for Colorado from big pharmaceutical companies who caused the opioid crisis. I’m continuing to work hard to ensure that those funds effectively address the opioid crisis, providing support for education/awareness, drug treatment and addiction recovery services.
We have more work to do to protect Colorado consumers. In my second term, I will continue to press antitrust legal actions against major tech companies like Google and Facebook, continue investigations against social media giants for harming kids’ mental health, and implement new state laws that prevent your private information from being sold without your consent.
During my first term, I worked closely with law enforcement across Colorado to improve our criminal justice system and protect public safety. Our department has, for example, used the state grand jury to advance many complex criminal cases, including those involving drug interdiction, human trafficking, and bicycle and automobile theft rings.
We also successfully pushed for important crime legislation, including bills to combat the fentanyl crisis, to clamp down on catalytic converter theft, and to get more needed funds to police and sheriffs. We pressed for and implemented responsible and effective gun safety measures, including Colorado’s red flag law and safe gun storage. And we continue to work on improving police officer recruitment and training.
I made protecting our land, water and air a top priority. This includes fighting against buy-and-dry plans to ship water from rural communities to Front Range suburbs, which would harm rural jobs, and addressing the challenges facing the Colorado River. We’re taking on the producers of PFAS (harmful and toxic “forever chemicals”). And we fought to address the threat of climate change by defending critical protections like the Methane Rule and Clean Car Rule.
There’s much more to do to continue this important work. Together, we’ll continue to defend and protect Coloradans' rights, public safety and our natural resources.
Phil Weiser is Colorado’s attorney general.
