Denver Post: Suthers Needs To Get Priorities Straight

When Colorado Confidential first reported on the Attorney General’s involvement with legal briefs and out-of-state social issues, it could never be imagined how far the story would go.

The Denver Post wrote on the issue last Thursday, and now the Denver Post editorial board has opined on Attorney General John Suthers’s request for more resources in consumer protection while his office tried to influence controversial issues in other states.From the Op-Ed:

Critics are wondering about Suthers’ decisions to participate in litigation on a pair of social cases in other states. One involves Nebraska’s law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman and the other tests a Virginia law involving the voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

We don’t think that an office as busy as Suthers’ needs to be involved in grandstanding on such issues from other states.

Last week, state Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, questioned why Suthers was taking on partisan legal battles at the same time he is asking for increased office funding. His request is nothing to sneeze at. All told, Suthers is seeking an addition of roughly 10 full-time employees, said spokeswoman Kristin Holtzman. In January, he’ll meet with the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, which has six members, including Pommer, to explain his budget request.

In conclusion:

The [Joint Budget Committee] should evaluate Suthers’ budget request on its merits and provide adequate funding for the AG to carry on the important legal tasks of his office. In return, Suthers should quit dallying in out-of-state social issues and focus on the fundamentals.
Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.