Prepared remarks: Colorado Municipal League Annual Conference (June 19, 2024)
Thank you so much for allowing me to join you today. For me, visiting with the Colorado Municipal League is not only about seeing valued friends and colleagues, but also a critical opportunity to learn. Each time I visit with you, individually and a whole, I learn so much about your communities and how we as a state government can best partner to support one another. Thank you, Kevin, for your leadership and service to Colorado through collaborative partnerships.
For me, showing up to listen and learn from you in your communities is an essential element of how I view governance. As I travel around the state, I hear common concerns that consistently come up at our community visits – lack of affordable housing, workforce recruitment, retention of essential workers (i.e., teachers, law enforcement personnel, mental health professionals), childcare affordability and availability, and access to inpatient/outpatient mental health and substance abuse services. It is no exaggeration to say that at each visit with local leaders and at every town hall, I learn something new and valuable that informs my work as attorney general.
To emphasize the power of the learning that comes from showing up and listening, consider our Colorado Partnership for Education and Rural Revitalization, or COPERR. This program originated directly from local conversations in Southeast Colorado. Community leaders from Trinidad to La Junta to Lamar all shared that dilapidated housing was a real concern, asking how our office could help. We leaned in. Through the leadership of our now Director of Community Engagement, Vanessa Devereaux, we created this program to both revitalize rural housing and support construction training programs, which includes four community colleges and is responding to the workforce development challenge facing these communities.
For many in local government, there is apprehension in working with state government. I have worked hard to overcome that hesitation, making clear that my team and I believe in local leadership and regionalism. That philosophy guided how we approached the opioid crisis and the investment of opioid settlement funds. My starting place for this conversation was that the overwhelming majority of the funds should be spent locally and regionally. That’s why the framework invests 90% of the funds at the local levels. It was also critical that all funds spent were transparently invested and focused on the opioid crisis rather than diverted to other uses. We did just that and The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health School—the top public health school in the nation—recognized our approach to planning and regional collaboration with the first award for Excellence in the Application of Opioid Litigation Principles.[1] And when HBO’s John Oliver criticized some states for failing to be transparent, he singled out Colorado and North Carolina for operating with a commitment to transparency.[2]
The opportunity for collaboration between the state and local governments can sometimes hit a road bump when the topic of Home Rule comes up. I recognize that this is always top of mind for you, and I am aware that there were spirited conversations at the Capitol over the proper role of the state versus localities this past session. As I’ve told Kevin before, I’m unfortunately unable to get into those weeds given our role of defending state laws.
Let me, however, address a broader philosophical point about what Home Rule means to me and the principle that local officials know their communities’ needs best. Over the last five and a half years, as I have served as attorney general, I’ve observed that sometimes local governments and the state disagree where that line between local and state authority may be. As a general rule, I would suggest that it’s in our interest to find opportunities for collaboration, as it always gets better outcomes than confrontation and adversarial relations. In our work, I can assure you that I will always take this approach in working with local governments, engaging you with a spirit of collaboration and a problem-solving mindset. When representing client state agencies, we are not in the driver’s seat in terms of shaping the relationship, but I can promise you this—I will never sign a lawsuit against a local government unless we reached out to you first to discuss the issue. We will only engage in litigation as a last resort.
Our philosophy of acting as a catalyst, enabler, and trusted collaborative partner has guided our approach to leading on our youth mental health crisis. Some of you may be familiar with our recently announced round of funding for school-community partners to advance holistic youth mental health. This opportunity follows two prior rounds of solicitations—one focused on non-profits and local governments and another focused on schools—designed to invest the $31.8 million we got in a legal settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer JUUL. The third round is designed to invest up to $20 million in school-community partnerships that promote mental health and wellness for youth and reduce their desire to vape. We announced the future granting opportunity seven months in advance so that school districts, local governments, and community partners have time to work creatively together on compelling grant applications. I strongly encourage you all to have a look at my recent remarks on this topic and how you can lean in with school districts and community partners to take advantage of this opportunity.[3]
As I have spoken about our work on opioids and youth mental health, many ask me “is this approach typical for a State Attorney General?” My answer is that this exemplifies what I mean when I talk about our work as the people’s lawyer. We are here to support and help governmental partners in a range of areas. Another critical example is water. On water quality, for example, we are actively involved in litigation and settlement conversations related to the public health harms from PFAS, or forever chemicals. In recent settlements with 3M and Dupont, we took it upon ourselves to reach out to over 160 eligible water districts to ensure that they are aware of the settlements and the July 12th deadline to file claims forms. Our team is ready to answer questions from drinking water systems about the process to help ensure that Colorado communities receive funds they are entitled to under these settlements.
Another important issue related to water is ensuring that we invest in water infrastructure and take advantage of a unique, once-in-a-generation funding opportunity. On account of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there are federal funds available and a requirement to tap state-matching funds.[4] Our office is all in on this work, and we are bringing on board a special counsel position in our environmental section of the office to support this work. Our state’s water infrastructure is largely locally controlled and managed, and I remain concerned that we as a state are falling short in prioritizing this topic and preparing to take advantage of this opportunity. As you all know, sports betting revenue is an important source of funding to implement Colorado’s Water Plan. To that end, I was happy to see CML support HB24-1436, which will ask voters whether to allow the state to keep and spend all revenue from the existing tax on sports betting.
More broadly, I am committed to supporting local governments, particularly rural communities, in gaining access to federal funds. In addition to the water infrastructure point, I am focused on how we address the broadband infrastructure issue as well as access law enforcement grant funds. On the law enforcement front, the Peace Officer Standards and Training program, or POST, is very focused on supporting local and regional efforts, both with state grant opportunities and support for applying for federal grants. And our department has also hired our first rural outreach specialist, Mindy Baumgartner, who is focusing on how to support rural communities in accessing state and federal resources.
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In closing, let me acknowledge that we live in a challenging time for governance. By that, I mean that we are in a time of rising distrust, increasing demonization of others, and less listening. We can all respond to that challenge by showing up authentically, listening to one another, and working together to solve problems. That spirit is what has animated our office’s work in our Ginsburg/Scalia Initiative, looking to the example of those two late U.S. Supreme Court justices on how to disagree without being disagreeable.
Many suggest that our governmental system is broken and our social fabric is fraying. For us, that suggestion is a challenge to demonstrate what responsible governance looks like and how we can engage in effective, collaborative problem solving. In so doing, we can also demonstrate that government is not a disconnected and removed enterprise from the people. Particularly at the state and local level, we can exemplify how President Lincoln defined democracy as government being “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”[5]
Finally, in celebrating your work, I would like to quote from Alexis de Tocqueville, who came to America from France in the early 1800s and admired our system of government, writing a landmark book, Democracy in America. He celebrated how governance worked in America, making the following observation—
Citizens who are bound to take part in public affairs must turn from the private interests and occasionally take a look at something other than themselves. As soon as common affairs are treated in common, each man notices that he is not as independent of his fellows as he used to support and that to get their help he must often offer his aid to them.[6]
For all of us, at the state level, at the local level, and as citizens, this is the vision we can strive for—to see one another as partners, colleagues, and dependent on another time. To that end, I often think about the idea that “all of us need all of us.” When we operate at our best in Colorado, we walk that walk and stand as a model of responsible governance. Thank you all for doing that work and being a model for our nation.
[1] https://opioidprinciples.jhsph.edu/principles-coalition-announces-inaugural-winners-of-award-for-excellence-in-the-application-of-the-opioid-litigation-principles/
[2] Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: Opioid Settlements (HBO television broadcast May 12, 2024).
[3] https://coag.gov/2024/attorney-generals-20-million-initiative-aims-to-boost-school-community-partnerships-to-promote-youth-mental-health-and-wellness-statewide/
[4] https://dlg.colorado.gov/local-match-program-federal-infrastructure-investment-and-jobs-act
[5] Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (Nov. 1863).
[6] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 510 (J.P. Mayer ed., George Lawrence trans., Harper Perennial 1988) (1840).