Make no mistake: Michael Allen and Jena Griswold have very different views of how much of an activist Colorado’s next attorney general should be.
And with AG Phil Weiser now the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, it is up to voters to determine the proper role of the office that serves as Colorado’s top enforcer of consumer-protection and environmental laws and author of many business-focused regulations.
Griswold, the Democrat who has served as the high-profile secretary of state for the past eight years, said the AG’s office can do more than it now does to crack down on polluters and to hold big corporations accountable for unfair practices. She wants to continue Weiser’s legacy of being very active in suing the federal government to uphold Colorado’s right to pass and enforce laws as it sees fit, and there are several places in which she would like to add to the office’s powers.
Allen, the Republican district attorney for El Paso and Teller counties, is a believer in a more limited government and said he feels Weiser’s barrage of 70-plus lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration is a “very politicized” effort. He absolutely will stand up for Colorado residents against polluters and potential corporate exploiters, but he wants to use the office more to bring about negotiated settlements than to burnish his decades of courtroom credentials for sake of filing legal actions.
A dispute over Colorado’s role in workplace safety
As an example of their different viewpoints, just look at how they would approach a bill that failed by one vote in the Senate last year — and likely is coming back in 2027 — that would allow the AG’s office to create new workplace-safety rules if the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were to roll back any of its rules. Business and Colorado Department of Health and Environment leaders pushed back against the bill, noting that the state does not enforce workplace safety now and that doing so could create confusion for employers over whether they’re following federal or state guidelines.
Griswold supports increasing workplace-safety protections and said that doing so is very important at a time when she feels Trump is trying to gut federal protections in this area and in other areas of law. While she said she’d work to alleviate concerns over potential double reporting in the proposal, she would back a bill giving her office that new authority.
“I do think it’s important that we have workplace standards,” Griswold told the “Colorado Chamber Office Hours” podcast. “We should all be able to say that safe workplaces is a value we all agree on.”
Jena Griswold interviews on the “Colorado Chamber Office Hours” podcast.
Allen, while willing to listen to arguments for the bill, said he would need to hear an explanation for why this increase in state-governmental power is needed right now. He also would need to understand the fiscal impacts on the AG’s office before committing that the office that legislators want to enforce such a new law would think it’s wise to do so.
“Doing it just because the federal government is rolling something back is not a good reason,” Allen said. “It’s got to be a very thoughtful and appropriate exercise of government power. It cannot be just a knee-jerk reaction to what the government is or isn’t doing.”
And that single issue, in many ways, reveals the sharp divide between the outlooks of the two candidates.
Divergent backgrounds inform AG candidates’ approaches
Griswold said the next AG needs first and foremost needs to “lead the defense of our democracy” from threats from the Trump administration, as she argues she’s done in pushing back as secretary of state on federal requests for sensitive voter data. That person needs to be prepared to protect the rule of law, she said, and to continue to file or join in multistate lawsuits when Trump encroaches on personal freedoms or seeks to retaliate against Colorado.
Allen — a native Coloradan who has spent his career as a prosecutor after an initial entry into the profession with the Kansas Attorney General’s office — believes the next AG must defend the state but do it in a way that protects people more than it attacks businesses. He talks at length about his background putting criminals in jail and argues that even though the AG’s office prosecutes more civil than criminal cases, the person who is elected must consider public safety a top priority in all actions they take.
Griswold also seeks to deflect criticism that she hasn’t been a practicing attorney by noting that the attorney general is not a trial attorney so much as the manager of a large office of competent professionals. And she notes that she is the only candidate who has managed an executive office of the state, putting her in position to oversee Colorado’s legal office.
The Democrat then points to things she has done in office to prove her argument — noting, for example, that she gathered evidence that led to the conviction of Mesa County Clerk and Record Tina Peters for breaching her county’s election security. Critics, however, will note that Griswold also oversaw an office that leaked election-equipment passwords and voters’ personal information on more than one occasion and that she has faced accusations of bullying by former employees.
Attorney general’s role in environmental and consumer-protection actions
Turning back to what they would do as AG, Griswold said that she would like to step up actions against environmental violations, working with the next governor on rapid-enforcement actions against what she labels as corporate polluters, Such a more aggressive stance is needed because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Trump is dialing down its enforcement actions, she said.
She would take a similar approach to aggressively pursuing actions in the consumer-protection arena, saying she’d like to target scammers and price gougers. And if elected, she would look to set up a special unit in the AG’s office to go after accused wage-theft violators — a duty that now lies exclusively with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, which has been working to make its efforts more efficient and effective.
“A business that is engaging in wage theft has an artificial, unlawful advantage against other businesses,” Griswold emphasized.
Michael Allen answers questions on the “Colorado Chamber Office Hours” podcast.
Allen’s approaches to pursuit of environmental and consumer-protection violations would be more circumspect, he explained. He would not seek to add powers to the AG’s office unless it’s absolutely necessary, and he would always look to negotiate with alleged offenders on such issues to get the best outcome for both employers and state residents.
Water law also big issue for attorney general
On consumer-protection issues — an area that was a specialty in his days with the Kansas Attorney General’s Office — he would look to be “measured and reasonable,” he emphasized. Residents must trust that you are looking to protect them, but businesses also must trust that you are not just looking to use the power of the state to make a statement and bolster your reputation, he said.
“Anytime you’re dealing with consumer protection, it has got to be a measured response to the issues,” Allen said. “You cannot overly punish the business community and stand on the side of consumers. But you also can’t abandon consumers.”
The next AG likely will play an elevated role as the state’s chief water lawyer as seven states battle over their allotment from the shrinking Colorado River and as Nebraska seeks to take more flow from the South Platte River to build a canal system. Both Griswold and Allen said they will look to rely on the existing water attorneys in the AG’s office and generally continue the directions they have taken in defending Colorado water in both matters.
Allen, who took several classes in water law during law school, said his north star will be providing certainty to farmers, ranchers and growing cities about how much water they will be able to access — whether via negotiations or courtroom battles when needed. Griswold said she will focus on negotiating a long-term agreement on Colorado River water that’s so far proved elusive — and also focus on leaning into conservation while ensuring the state gets credit in its negotiations for that conservation.
A question of how to deal with the federal government
Allen said he wants to create an attorney general’s office, that is less politically motivated than he believes the current office has been.
“If the federal government hurts Colorado, then the attorney general can stand up and fight for Colorado and our sovereignty,” he said. “But it should never be just because the Republican president is in the White House or the Democratic president is in the White House.”
Griswold, meanwhile, is positioning herself for potentially more fights than her predecessor.
“I look forward to protecting our state from a hostile federal government and doing everything I can to protect the middle class,” she said. “We will do everything we can to push back on this lawless administration.”