Attorney General Phil Weiser is looking to make history in 2026. Weiser, if elected, would be the first Colorado attorney general to become governor in the state’s history. But that tidbit didn’t come up in a conversation Law Week had with the gubernatorial candidate.
Weiser announced his bid for governor on Jan. 2, becoming one of the first major candidates in the race to replace the outgoing Gov. Jared Polis, who is term-limited.
Weiser began his career at the U.S. Supreme Court, serving as a law clerk for Justices Byron White and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He then joined the U.S. Justice Department, where he was an antitrust lawyer. In 2009, Weiser was tapped by former President Barack Obama to become deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s antitrust division.
Weiser’s next job in D.C. would be at the White House, where he was senior advisor for technology and innovation for the National Economic Council.
Following his time in the White House, Weiser’s career took him to the University of Colorado Law School, where he served as its dean. He’s currently in his second and final term as the state’s top lawyer.
Weiser believes that this experience would translate well to leading the state’s executive branch. He noted that lawyers are often successful leaders, pointing to Govs. Josh Shapiro and Maura Healey, who were attorneys general of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, respectively, before being elected governor.
“The skills of being a lawyer involve: how can you think rigorously about issues, and how can you lead by creating a sense of direction and building a team where people are on the same page,” Weiser said.
But it’s not skills alone that Weiser said he’d bring to the office. He told Law Week that his work as attorney general has given him an understanding of the issues facing the state and has helped him build relationships with communities across the state.
“I’ve been the lawyer for the state, which means every single issue that you can think about facing Colorado, from how do we meet our clean energy goals, to how we address affordability challenges protecting consumers and tenants during this time where people are finding it hard to make ends meet, to how do you protect public safety — I’ve worked on these issues for the state,” Weiser said. “Our state issues are familiar to me, the people who are working on them are familiar to me, I am very well situated to pick up the baton from Governor Polis.”
One of the key policy priorities for Weiser is the state’s affordability challenges. He said he hears often from teachers, law enforcement officials and citizens across the state that they can’t afford to live in the community where they’re working.
Weiser noted that he’s looking at several areas when it comes to this issue, including housing, healthcare and child care.
On the housing front, Weiser recently joined the U.S. Justice Department and a group of states suing the real estate company RealPage and six of the largest nationwide landlords. The suit alleges that the landlords have colluded through their use of RealPage, distorting the rental market in the process. “[RealPage] has hiked up rents as much as $136 a month in Denver by using a software program that’s enabling price fixing,” Weiser said.
But protecting renters is just one facet of Weiser’s plan to improve the state’s housing situation. Finding creative ways to get more housing built is another key component for him.
“That’s a conversation that I want to continue to advance with private sector leaders, with different public sector leaders, we’re going to have to lean in hard,” Weiser said. “There has been too little housing built, and I am open to all sorts of creative solutions in moving that agenda forward.”
In addition to the state’s affordability crisis, Weiser also wants to help address the state’s long-term water situation, public safety and youth mental health.
Weiser told Law Week that he will work collaboratively to find water solutions where he can with the other basin states, but he also wants to make sure that Colorado isn’t taken advantage of.
“One of the challenges in the Colorado River Compact is lower basin states have been using more water than they have been entitled to, and that’s something I am concerned about,” Weiser said. “We need a realistic partnership with the federal government and surrounding states.”
He noted that the pandemic raised a number of public safety challenges, including many law enforcement professionals leaving the profession.
“We need to recruit and train more responsible and effective law enforcement officers, we need to better prepare with what you might call crime prevention strategies that can keep people safe,” Weiser said.
Weiser also is concerned about Colorado’s youth, in particular about the state of mental health among young people in Colorado. According to the 2023 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, which is run by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, more than 28% of Colorado’s high school students had poor mental health most of the time or always during the past 30 days.
“There is a real challenge young people feel in not being trained for jobs of the future, and we’ve in some cases hobbled out career and technical education, and there are young people who don’t feel a part of their communities,” Weiser said. “I want to create a voluntary service program where young people can go to different parts of our state, serve in law enforcement and teaching and nursing and do something bigger than themselves and create more hope and opportunity for the future.”
While most governors enter the office with lofty ambitions, implementing them into law or state policy can sometimes be a challenge. Colorado’s legislature has been dominated by Weiser’s party in recent years, but there have been serious intraparty fractures on various policy areas, including housing and labor.
When asked about how he’d work with the General Assembly to enact his agenda, Weiser told Law Week that he wasn’t approaching it as a hypothetical. He noted that he’s been working with the state’s legislature for the past six years across a wide range of policy areas. That’s included consumer protection issues like protecting patients from medical debt, recruiting more law enforcement officers and protecting the state’s land, air and water.
He also noted that every bill he’s put forward as attorney general has been bipartisan. “The way I’d work with the General Assembly is with respect, with collaboration and with commitment to problem solving,” Weiser said.
But Weiser may not enjoy the same budgetary surplus the state has enjoyed in the past few years. To deal with what will likely be a more complicated budgetary landscape over the next few years, Weiser said his approach will be multi-pronged, and it’s one he says has already begun in the attorney general’s office.
He noted that dealing with the new reality will start with finding ways to save in existing budgets and by getting creative in finding funding sources to meet existing needs. But he also made the point that the state’s budget recession hasn’t come about because of prevailing economic conditions.
“This budget recession environment we’re in is not because of an economic recession; it’s because of a TABOR-induced recession,” Weiser said. “There are certain fine prints in TABOR that create these caps, in some cases, that are arcane and may deserve to be re-looked at.”
He’s concerned that the difficult budget environment could lead to essential service cuts in both healthcare and education.
Another challenge that Weiser will face, albeit one he already has some experience with, is a new administration taking up residence in the White House. With the Trump administration just days from taking the reins, Weiser said he will hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
He noted his previous work with the Federal Communications Commission to stop robocalls during Trump’s first administration as an example of collaboration. While he didn’t rule out the possibility of future collaboration, he said it will depend on whether the issue is one that will allow it.
“There’s also an ongoing risk that things happen that are illegal and hurt Colorado,” Weiser said. “When that happens, whether it’s mass, indiscriminate deportation, which is something that’s been threatened, or threatening reproductive rights and reproductive freedom, I’m going to protect Colorado. That’s my job, to protect the people of Colorado, whether I’m attorney general or governor.”
The rise of artificial intelligence is also on the attorney general’s mind. Weiser told Law Week that he believes AI presents huge opportunities and that he wants Colorado to be a leader in this area. He noted the potential benefits the technology presented for public safety and in water management. But he also acknowledged that AI could be very harmful for the public if misused, including in enabling or entrenching discrimination.
“I’m going to make sure that we have appropriate guardrails and we’re thoughtful about how we use AI,” Weiser said. “But we need to make sure that any of those restrictions or regulatory oversight mechanisms are based in real harm and aren’t simply us mandating basically hypothetical situations that aren’t realistic or aren’t happening.”
Weiser also wants to continue working on Colorado’s legal desert program if elected governor. He told Law Week that his work on the issue dates back to his time as dean of the University of Colorado School of Law. While dean, Weiser worked to create a scholarship program to encourage students to spend summers outside the front range, created a student loan relief program for attorneys working outside the front range and making less money as a result and worked to create a legislature-funded fellowship program that encourages recent law school graduates to work in the state’s rural offices.
He wants to continue that work as governor, and he said it’s one of the reasons why he wants to create a youth public service program.
“This is something we need in our state, a call to service and an understood, shared commitment that everyone matters and that all parts of our state matter,” Weiser said.