By admin 
At a testy debate three weeks before the Nov. 3 election, Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Republican prosecutor Michael Allen each sought to portray the other as wholly unfit to be Colorado’s next attorney general.
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Allen — the district attorney for El Paso and Teller counties — characterized Griswold as unqualified to be the state’s top attorney, pointing to her lack of experience arguing cases in court.
“I’m the only person that’s in this race today that knows how to fight in a courtroom,” Allen said.
Griswold, meanwhile, repeatedly challenged Allen to explain why voters in an overwhelmingly Democratic state should trust a Republican to represent their values and push back against President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies.
“I have the experience that matters most to Coloradans, and that is standing up to Trump and MAGA to protect our state,” Griswold said.
The event was moderated by The Colorado Sun at the University of Denver in what was expected to be the only debate between the two candidates before the general election. Noticias Univision Colorado, a Spanish-language news network, co-moderated the debate, which was sponsored by The Colorado Health Foundation.
The debate was marked by personal attacks from the beginning, with each candidate accusing the other of lying and misrepresenting their record.
They repeatedly sparred over how aggressively the state should fight the Trump administration.
Griswold called it “the most corrupt administration in history,” and said “the fundamental role” of the next attorney general will be to defend immigrants from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Allen, meanwhile, accused Griswold of being overly partisan, casting himself as a more neutral arbiter who would enforce the law regardless of his political beliefs.
“There will be times to fight the Trump administration,” he said. “In two years, when a new president is sworn in, there will be plenty of time to fight that new president as well.”
While Griswold heaped praise on current Attorney General Phil Weiser for the dozens of lawsuits he has brought against Trump, Allen said some were politically motivated.
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“There are certainly lawsuits that I would stay in based on the evidence,” Allen said. “There would be others that I would drop out of.”
As an example, he said he disagreed with Weiser’s lawsuit seeking to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado, saying that Trump as commander in chief has the power to decide where to station military forces.
“That’s one that is clearly a very partisan decision, and when we’re standing for Coloradans’ rights, we should never make decisions based on partisan politics,” Allen said.
Griswold countered that it was Trump’s decision to move it in the first place that was partisan. Trump said he did so partly in retaliation for Colorado’s use of mail-in ballots.
“It is unconstitutional to retaliate against the state over an illegal, invalid reason,” Griswold said. “It is not partisan to fight against it, it’s patriotic. That’s exactly what we should be doing.”
Both candidates pledged to use consumer protection laws to go after scammers and crack down on corporate landlords that take advantage of tenants. They both also pledged to hold federal law enforcement officers accountable if they break the law.
But Allen and Griswold offered different approaches to environmental protection.
Griswold said she agreed with Weiser’s decision to file an amicus brief in support of the city of Boulder’s lawsuit seeking damages from Suncor for pollution caused by its oil and gas facilities. The landmark climate change case is now being heard by the Supreme Court.
“Local governments should have the ability to fight back against corporate polluters,” Griswold said.
Allen, however, said allowing individual cities to file lawsuits against oil and gas could be disastrous for the industry.
“If that becomes the norm, the oil and gas industry is going to go out of business in Colorado, and that will have negative impacts on all of you,” he said. “Your cost at the pump will go exponentially higher.”
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