AG Candidates Brauchler and Weiser Disagree on Scope Of Office

ARAPAHOE COUNTY – By Alex Burness for The Colorado Independent. George Brauchler, the Republican running to be Colorado’s next attorney general, says he disagreed with the federal government’s policy of separating immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. But, he says, that’s really none of a state A.G.’s business, anyway.

“If it takes place at the border and doesn’t involve Coloradans,” then the state attorney should stay out of it, Brauchler argued during an interview last week.

His opponent, Democrat Phil Weiser, also opposed the Trump administration’s family separations. It “shocks the conscience,” he says.

Weiser disagrees, however, with Brauchler’s assertion that the separations are no concern for a Colorado attorney general.

“We as a state are committed to welcoming asylum seekers who deserve due process,” he said, also in an interview last week. “It’s part of our constitutional commitment. … We have federal legal protection for asylum seekers. We in Colorado care about that.”

Their divergent assessments of how the state’s next attorney general should approach border enforcement — Brauchler says he would’ve stayed out of it, and Weiser says he would’ve fought the Trump administration — exemplify a stark difference between the candidates: Weiser says he got in this race specifically to act as a check on Trump, and Brauchler says he wouldn’t actively seek to pick federal fights against Trump or, for that matter, against a Democratic president.

READ MORE at The Colorado Independent.

Image: Phil Weiser and George Brauchler at a candidate forum in Denver on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. (Photos by Rachel Lorenz and Evan Semón for The Colorado Independent)