Two Democrats vying for the chance to be Colorado’s next attorney general would not commit to voting for Secretary of State Jena Griswold in November should she win the primary at a forum Wednesday evening.
Former federal prosecutor Hetal Doshi, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty and David Seligman, a consumer and workers rights attorney, differentiated how they would approach the job of the state’s top lawyer. All three took jabs at the fourth candidate, Griswold, who declined to participate in the forum, hosted by The Colorado Sun and the Colorado Health Foundation.
Seligman said he would vote for Griswold if she is the Democratic nominee “without hesitation.” Doshi and Dougherty said they would need certain guarantees from Griswold; Dougherty said he would need a commitment from her that she would not skip candidate forums in the general election.
All three candidates took issue with the characterization of Griswold as the front runner and downplayed concerns that staying in the race is essentially handing her the nomination because they would split the votes opposing her.
“It’s not just a refusal to answer unscripted questions, it is also a lack of accountability for a record,” Doshi said.
“I think it’s about showing up and answering questions about our experience as lawyers and leaders, because if you’re going to say you’re taking Donald Trump to court, it can’t be your first time walking into a courtroom, and you can’t skip every candidate forum and debate where the people are owed answers from us,” Dougherty said.
Colorado’s current attorney general, Democrat Phil Weiser, is term-limited and can’t run for reelection.
The winner of the June 30 Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary, where El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen and David Wilson, a lawyer who represented Tina Peters in an unsuccessful recount lawsuit, are competing for the nomination. Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, served nearly 20 months in prison for orchestrating an elections system security breach. Gov. Jared Polis commuted her sentence in a highly controversial move all three attorney general candidates said they objected to on Wednesday. She was freed this month.
The attorney general manages an office of more than 650 employees, with a wide-ranging mandate to prosecute criminal cases, protect consumers and the environment, enforce antitrust and housing laws, represent state agencies and defend state laws in court.
Doshi said she would go after white collar corruption, Dougherty said he’d protect the environment, and Seligman said he’d prioritize the rights of low-wage workers and immigrants in federal detention.
All called out what they said were abuses by the Trump administration motivating them to run for higher office.
“This election is about hiring a lawyer for the people of Colorado,” Seligman said. “It could not get more important than this.”
Doshi, 47, of Denver, stressed her experience blocking corporate mergers and leading large teams of federal prosecutors taking on corporate corruption. She served as a deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice during the Biden administration, where she led the antitrust unit. Before that, she was a federal prosecutor in Colorado for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Dougherty, 54, of Boulder, touted his experience taking on cases of the King Soopers mass shooting, the Pearl Street firebombing and the Marshall fire. He has served as the district attorney for Boulder County since 2018 after working as an assistant district attorney in Colorado’s first judicial district. Before that he was a lawyer in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York. He served as Colorado’s deputy attorney general in charge of the office’s criminal section from 2010 to 2013.
Seligman, 43, of Denver, said he has dedicated his career to taking on corporate interests on behalf of marginalized people. Seligman is the executive director of Towards Justice, a legal nonprofit that specializes in workers rights. Before that, he worked as an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center in Boston.
On much, the three candidates agreed. All said that the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the Colorado constitutional clause that restricts state spending, needed to be changed.
All said elements of TABOR are unconstitutional, but Dougherty went a step further to say he would champion TABOR’s elimination as attorney general.
“I will lead the charge to modify or eliminate TABOR, and that is going to take a statewide effort,” he said.
All three candidates said the Colorado attorney general’s office needed to do more to hold environmental polluters, including energy giant Suncor, accountable and go after tech companies for their impact on kids.
Seligman said he would back a moratorium on data center development “at least until we can figure out how to regulate these companies,” he said. Seligman differentiated himself by saying he would be open to foundations or wealthy individuals funding positions at the attorney general’s office.
“In certain cases where AGs aren’t staffed up to do essential work, like protecting the workplace health and safety of workers … public agencies have come together with foundations to fund really important work in AG offices, and I would be open to it, but mindful of the risks of corruption and engage outside experts to ensure that the corruption lines are crossed,” he said.
Dougherty called Polis’ commutation of Peters’ sentence “an absolute miscarriage of justice.” But Doshi was the only candidate who said she was open to amending the clemency process to prohibit a governor from awarding clemency before the case’s appellate process has been completely exhausted — but with a carve-out for claims of innocence.
“Commutation is to exercise mercy,” she said. “I would want to make sure that the exercise or the limitation on the governor’s powers rooted out the opportunity for corruption or termination of a process in a preemptive way.”
Doshi said she would strengthen protections for victims of crimes, red flag laws and white collar criminal statutes.
Dougherty also said he would beef up social media protections for kids.