If all goes the way that the Denver Post laid out in very matter-of-fact terms today, Attorney General John Suthers is either planning to seek the nomination for governor or U.S. senator from Colorado in 2010. Meanwhile Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid will step down from the bench if her husband, Troy Eid, is elected Colorado’s next attorney general.
Eid, a Republican who is currently the U.S. attorney from Colorado, announced he is planning to resign from the office on Jan. 19, the day before Democrat Barack Obama is sworn in as president.
According to the Post, Eid plans to rejoin the private firm Greenberg Traurig, where he worked from 2003 to 2006, and also run for attorney general in 2010.
AG Suthers, who could run for a second term in 2010, hasn’t formally announced his plans, though he did recently express some glee over the possibility of running against U.S. Senate appointee Michael Bennet.
“The governor said his No. 1 criteria was to find someone who represented all of Colorado,” Suthers told the Rocky Mountain News in a Jan. 3 news story. “I don’t think Bennet fits the bill at all. He’s very Denver.”
As for Colorado’s next U.S. attorney — other than the likely nominee’s being a Democrat, it’s currently unclear who is at the head of the line. As the Colorado Independent has reported, Sen. Ken Salazar will likely recommend the state’s next top federal prosecutor before he leaves office to head up the Department of the Interior.
This week Don Quick, who just won a second term as the 17th Judicial District attorney in Adams and Broomfield counties, said he plans to stay put. Denver attorney Willie Shepherd, who is active in Democratic Party politics and numerous civic and philanthropic boards, also said he’s not in the running.
Other possible nominees include University of Colorado Regent Michael Carrigan, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer, current Assistant U.S. Attorney Jaime Pena and Stephanie Villafuerte, deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Ritter.
Over the past decade, three of the top cases prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Colorado include those of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio, convicted of insider trading; Terry Barton, the U.S. Forest Service worker who started the largest wildfire in Colorado history; and three Roman Catholic nuns, convicted of malicious destruction of property for spreading their own blood on a nuclear missile silo in Weld County.
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