Pull quote: From officially encouraging ineligible immigrants to vote, to

Colorado Democrats are poised to nominate another attorney general candidate with de minimis relevant credentials or experience. Far from disqualifying, Colorado’s recent voting history mirrors that of America in favoring biography over experience, partisanship over policy, and emphasizing what divides us more than what should unite us. 

Jena Griswold, arguably the leading Democrat candidate for AG, was elected secretary of state in 2018, the year Colorado stopped pretending it was politically purple. That year, the majority of Colorado’s voters expressed their sincere and emotional displeasure with Trump in his first midterm by voting against every Republican they could. In so doing, they looked past the glaring inadequacies of Griswold, including the revelation that she valued her right to vote so much, she did not do it much. 

If you have yet to watch CBS News Colorado’s Shaun Boyd’s recent disassembly of Griswold’s misrepresentations about her thin legal and work background — regrettably, not until her third statewide campaign — do it now. It comes as no surprise to anyone who watched her trip into the SOS office after a campaign pledging to protect — abortion rights. It appears Griswold’s claims of representing clients and arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court are as hollow and odious as the fabled outhouse she exaggerated use of when she was growing up. 

Griswold worked as an attorney in DC for five whole months. In a row. One client. Ever. As for Griswold’s bragging that she “argued to the Supreme Court” to disenfranchise Trump voters in Colorado (a position SCOTUS rejected unanimously), it seems someone merely read to her the big legal words in a draft pleading filed by the Phil Weiser’s AG office.  

The results of sending someone so ill-equipped to be our secretary of state — twice — are well-documented. From officially encouraging ineligible immigrants to vote, to posting online to the whole planet earth the super-secret passwords for our state’s gold standard voting machines, Griswold has proven that there are clocks so broken they are never right. Her leadership of the office has resulted in so many resignations that it appears to the casual observer that the fire alarm at the SOS office is perpetually pulled. Inexplicably, Griswold has required fleeing employees to sign non-disclosure agreements on their way out of the inferno. Griswold’s transparency ends at passwords. 

This is not the first time Dems have done this to Colorado. 2018 also saw the election of an AG who had scant and exaggerated experience. I am required by good form to acknowledge that Phil Weiser defeated me in a free and fair election in 2018. At that time, Weiser widely claimed and an unscrutinizing media agreed that he had served in the U.S. Department of Justice and the Obama administration. Both were true — in a Griswoldian way. Weiser served in the DOJ — anti-trust section — for nine whole months. In a row. A mere four months longer than Griswold practiced in DC. As for the Obama gig, Phil was a Senior Advisor for Technology and Innovation, not a practicing attorney with clients. 

As our state’s “top legal officer”— his claim — Weiser has watched our criminal laws be gutted by our legislature. He sat silently while fentanyl was reduced to a meaningless misdemeanor and only spoke up after thousands of Colorado lives were lost to the obvious poison. Weiser also championed a change in the law to legalize the possession of guns in our neighborhoods by convicted drug dealers and car thieves (notoriously linked to violent crimes). Additionally, Weiser touted a flaccid-on-crime approach to car thieves, insisting that they only be held in jail after “a third or fourth car theft in, say, three months.” Under Weiser’s leadership, Colorado has become the eighth-worst state in America for violent crime and the third-worst for property crime. 

Weiser disastrously mishandled the Elijah McClain grenade Gov. Polis rolled under his remote-work tent. Weiser hid behind the grand jury, rather than make the tough decision — which he had no experience in making. The story unexplored by the media is that Weiser could not convince a single prosecutor with any experience — either in his office or among the Dem DA ranks across Colorado — to help him with the politically-driven prosecution. 

Weiser ‘s focus in office has been Trump. Once he joins 70 lawsuits filed by other states against Trump, he wins a Joe Biden auto-pen. 

And then there’s the U.S. Supreme Court. Sigh. Weiser’s batting average on the big stage would get him sent to low Low-A baseball, even as a Rocky. Each of Weiser’s efforts to shrink our First Amendment rights has been rejected by SCOTUS by big margins — even unanimously. 

Weiser has proven to be the most hyper-partisan AG in Colorado’s history. Yet, his politics-first performance will pale in comparison to what we can expect from Griswold. But, hey, at least they hate Trump and support abortion. And that’s the path to a better Colorado, right? 

I beseech you, my fellow Colorado voters, to end our failed experiment with GrisWeiser and similar candidates from either party. This time, please, vote for Colorado. 

George Brauchler is the 23rd Judicial District attorney and former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He has served as an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. Follow him on Twitter