The Colorado lawmakers who write the state’s budget rejected a request from the governor and attorney general to hire a group of lawyers to be loaned out to the federal government to prosecute gun crimes in federal court.
The Joint Budget Committee voted twice earlier this month to reject the proposal, which would have set aside hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire as many as four attorneys, as it finalized the budget for debate before the full legislature in the coming weeks.
The latest vote to sideline the request was 3-3, with Democratic Rep. Emily Sirota of Denver joining the two Republicans on the JBC last week to block the spending. (Tie votes on the JBC result in proposals being rejected.)
“We have limited resources to spread across the state to meet a whole variety of needs,” Sirota told The Colorado Sun. “We have a lot of needs to meet in the state and funding federal positions — I had to prioritize our dollars.”
The request was aimed in part in filling a void left after the legislature in recent years rolled back a blanket prohibition barring people convicted of felonies from possessing guns. Instead, only those convicted of committing the state’s most serious felonies, like murder, rape, assault, robbery, arson and child abuse, are now prohibited from having a firearm. Felony convictions for drug crimes and car theft, for instance, no longer trigger the ban. The legislation was part of broader criminal justice reforms at the Capitol aimed at reducing incarceration.
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Under federal law, however, a person convicted of any felony is still barred from buying or possessing a firearm or ammunition and faces a 10-year prison sentence if found guilty.
The budget request was aimed at building on an existing program created by U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan, a Biden appointee who is the top federal prosecutor in Colorado.
A group of lawyers from the Denver City Attorney’s Office and Aurora City Attorney’s Office have been working in Finegan’s office since last year as federal prosecutors focused on gun crimes, including firearms possession charges against those previous offenders.
Federal prosecutors have long used federal gun laws, and the strict penalties that accompany them, as a way to target violent offenders, particularly people accused of being in gangs and trafficking drugs. But with only about 45 total prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado, fewer than the number in many district attorney’s offices, the scope of that work has been limited.
“If we have people walking around in our communities who are felons in possession of guns they shouldn’t be in possession of (committing crimes in the community), then we should get them off the street,” Finegan told The Sun last year.
But state lawmakers were wary of spending state dollars to bolster the work of a federal agency, especially given how limited the state’s resources are compared to the federal budget.
“Why are we supplanting the federal government with our budget, with our taxpayers?” asked state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican who sits on the JBC and voted down the request. “If the governor wants to go, or if the attorney general wants to go, and impress on the federal government that they should make this a priority in Colorado, then they should go do that.”
State Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat on the JBC who supported the request, viewed the situation differently.
“Right now we have people committing federal crimes that aren’t being prosecuted because the U.S. Attorney’s Office doesn’t have the capacity to prosecute them,” he said. “That means really bad people are getting let go simply because the U.S. attorney doesn’t have the lawyers that they need.”
Finegan’s office declined to comment on the JBC’s decision.
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Shelby Wieman, a spokesman for Polis, said in a written statement that the governor “disagrees with the JBC’s decision.”
“This request was based on similar work already happening in Denver and Aurora to combat serious firearm-related offenses like gun smuggling and illegal sales to convicted gang members in Colorado and would have added critical prosecutorial capacity to the state,” she said.
Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for Weiser, said the attorney general’s office “will continue to do all we can — partnered with Gov. Polis, U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan and the district attorneys — to crack down on gun crimes and promote gun safety in our communities.”
Some in the legislature may try to revive the funding request when the budget is debated before the full legislature, but it faces unlikely odds given the JBC’s repeated opposition.