Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, December 29, 2006 11:18:53 PM
About a week ago, I wrote an essay on my expectation as to the Republican chances of retaining Senator Wayne Allard's seat in 2008. I was not hopeful.
Of the four people I identified as potential candidates, Bob Beauprez (who lost both the extreme right and the center of the Republicans in the recent election) Marc Holtzman (who would be a disaster), Bob Schaffer (the candidate of self described "values voters," a candidate who will have to live down his 2004 actions to be viable), and Tom Tancredo (a single issue candidate), none seemed viable.
I overlooked John Suthers, the Colorado Attorney General. I have no good reason for ignoring him as a potential candidate as he just won reelection by a wide margin in an otherwise Democratic year in Colorado.
John Suthers may have a problem that he probably hasn't thought much about. I would call him more a candidate of the Colorado Bar Association than a candidate of the people. Of all of the the active candidates for reelection this year, he was the only one who actively campaigned against amendment 40, judicial term limits. While Bill Ritter and Bob Beauprez both came out against this amendment, neither actively campaigned against it.
That wasn't true of John Suthers. Suthers participated in a press conference with former governors in opposition, spewing the Colorado Bar Association position. He also released more than one press release in opposition.
Now, I find out that his office is defending Harrington v. Wilson et al. That lawsuit was filed by an individual who could not get John Gleason's Attorney Regulation to act on his complaint against an attorney, and probably could not get the Dr. Commission on Judicial Discipline to act on what I suspect was his complaint against a Colorado District Judge, Jane Tidball for failing to rule on a motion for more than a year. (I should point out that this is based solely on deduction. Given Harrington's insistence on making the Attorney Regulation system work, I can't believe he wouldn't attempt to invoke CRS 13-5-136.).
By choosing to aggressively defend this lawsuit, John Suthers is taking the position that it is acceptable for an attorney or a judge in Colorado to intentionally damage a citizen, but that no citizen has a viable recourse to either stop or recoup the damages. That, coincidentally, is the Colorado Bar Association position. That also is the State Supreme Court position. That is what the "independent judiciary" that Suthers vocally campaigned for buys us.
Attorney General John Suthers' position in this issue is flat out immoral. It serves the interests of the members of the Colorado Bar Association, all 22,000 of them. It does not serve the interests of any of the remaining citizens of Colorado, and in fact attacks their interests.
John Suthers has a near term decision to make. The lawsuit is on appeal because the Federal District Judge, Edward Nottingham, hearing the case did not have the technological know how to deal with a hyperlinked document and dismissed the case rather than try to learn. This is a case that needs to be heard, and Suthers should be supporting its reinstatement, unusual as that might be.
John Suthers also has a longer term decision to make. He must choose whose interests he wants to be seen to represent if he wants to be anything other than Attorney General.