Rocky Mountain Voice

Tag: Phil Weiser

Law Enforcement Under Fire for Upholding Federal Immigration Laws
State, Approved, denvergazette.com

Law Enforcement Under Fire for Upholding Federal Immigration Laws

By Luige del Puerto | The Denver Gazette Phil Weiser's suit targets Mesa County Deputy Alexander Zwinck for allegedly violating state laws that prohibit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The unpaid, weeks-long suspension of a deputy sheriff out of Mesa County for sharing information with federal agents has raised questions about how local authorities must navigate a state law that bars cooperation with immigration enforcers. More notably, it's unclear whether the impositions of the new law also mean limiting access by local officers to the more expansive federal databases — something the Mesa County deputy had cited as a major reason for cooperating with multiple agencies.  The law, expanded this year, expressly prohibits all Colorado state agencies an...
State Targets Law Enforcement for Cooperating with Federal Immigration Agents
Fox News, Approved, State

State Targets Law Enforcement for Cooperating with Federal Immigration Agents

By Landon Mion | Fox News Mesa County deputies Alexander Zwinck and Erik Olson were placed on unpaid leave after sharing information with ICE following traffic stops. Two Colorado deputies have been disciplined for sharing information with federal immigration agents, which is a violation of state law enacted a few months ago. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser sued Mesa County Sheriff's Deputy Alexander Zwinck last week after his cooperation with federal immigration agents on a drug task force was exposed during a Brazilian college student's arrest for an expired visa, according to The Associated Press. While addressing the incident on Thursday, Mesa County Sheriff Todd Rowell said Caroline Dias-Goncalves, a 19-year-old nursing student, was pulled over by Zwinck for a traffi...
Mesa County Sheriff Blasts Phil Weiser for Politicized Lawsuit Against Deputy
Local, Approved, denvergazette.com

Mesa County Sheriff Blasts Phil Weiser for Politicized Lawsuit Against Deputy

By Luige del Puerto and Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette The decision by the Colorado Attorney General's Office to sue a deputy is "demoralizing," Mesa County's sheriff said on Wednesday, arguing it sends the message that the state's top law enforcement office is selectively enforcing a state law barring cooperation with federal immigration agents — and for "maximum political effect." Sheriff Todd Rowell said Attorney General Phil Weiser knew of officers from another law enforcement agency who also shared information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and faced no consequences, while his deputy is the subject of a lawsuit from Weiser's office. "As it stands, the lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s Office sends a demoralizing message to law enforcemen...
Colorado AG Weiser sues Mesa County deputy for helping ICE make arrest
kdvr.com, Approved, State

Colorado AG Weiser sues Mesa County deputy for helping ICE make arrest

By Colleen Slevin | Fox31 DENVER (AP) — Colorado’s Democratic attorney general on Tuesday sued a sheriff’s deputy for allegedly helping federal immigration agents find and arrest a college student who had an expired visa. Attorney General Phil Weiser also disclosed that his office is investigating whether other law enforcement officers on a regional drug task force the deputy worked on have been sharing information to help federal agents make immigration arrests in violation of state law limiting cooperation in immigration enforcement. The federal government has sued Colorado over such laws. On June 5, Mesa County Deputy Alexander Zwinck allegedly shared the driver’s license, vehicle registration and insurance information of the 19-year-old nursing student in a Signal chat us...
Gazette editorial board: AG Weiser defends censure-shamed CU regent over public health warning
Local, Approved, gazette.com

Gazette editorial board: AG Weiser defends censure-shamed CU regent over public health warning

By The Gazette Editorial Board | Commentary, The Gazette For a politician with his eyes on a higher prize, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser sure seemed shortsighted the other day when he took to social media in defense of the indefensible — a University of Colorado regent rightly rebuked by her peers for her abuse of office. Readers might recall the CU Board of Regents recently voted 7-1 to censure first-term board member Wanda James, a Democrat who represents Denver’s 1st Congressional District. James, arguably the state’s most politically ambitious pot dealer, has behaved at times as if she represents the marijuana industry rather than her district — and it finally backfired on her. The owner of a Denver marijuana retail outlet, James unconscionably attempted this year to s...
Sengenberger: Weiser’s CU intervention reveals his true priorities
denvergazette.com, Approved, Commentary, State

Sengenberger: Weiser’s CU intervention reveals his true priorities

By Jimmy Sengenberger | Commentary, Denver Gazette On Sunday, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser picked a fight he shouldn’t have. In a thread on X, Weiser — a Democrat running for governor — defended CU Regent Wanda James by blasting her colleagues for recently censuring and sanctioning her in a bipartisan vote. The board had censured James, who is a pot shop proprietor, after she tried to discredit and defund the university’s award-winning “Tea on THC” awareness campaign. It educates the public on the risks of marijuana use for kids, including during pregnancy. James, a Democrat who boasts of being the nation’s first Black owner of a legal retail marijuana business, had demanded earlier this year that the campaign’s website be “taken down immediately” over “racist” illustr...
Trucking industry: Colorado’s climate lawsuit is unrealistic and wasteful
Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Trucking industry: Colorado’s climate lawsuit is unrealistic and wasteful

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics The head of a Colorado trucking industry group is voicing worries about the Attorney General's decision to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over vehicle emissions, stressing that the adopted standards are already "impossible" to meet. Last week, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced that he is joining a coalition of states in filing a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's use of the Congressional Review Act to prohibit states from adopting stricter emissions standards for certain motor vehicles. California has received federal permission to adopt more stringent standards, with Colorado and other states following suit in adopting emissions standards. Adopted in 1996, the Congressional Review Act ...
Gaines: Phil Weiser spends your tax dollars suing Trump and backing gun control
Colorado Accountability Project, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

Gaines: Phil Weiser spends your tax dollars suing Trump and backing gun control

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project There but for the grace of God goes Colorado I was corresponding with someone recently and they mentioned something interesting. This person is a lawyer and said they were in a 10th circuit (Federal) courtroom recently and overheard an appellate case out of New Mexico about gun control. I am not sure if you remember, but New Mexico's governor made quite a splash a while back by declaring a public health emergency related to guns, trying essentially to use that to take away the Second Amendment rights of the citizens of that state. Those orders, and later iterations of same, have been working their way through the courts ever since. The first link below is to that case if you're curious. This person asked a neighbor...
Colorado joins multistate lawsuit challenging Trump administration tariffs
Approved, denvergazette.com, National, State

Colorado joins multistate lawsuit challenging Trump administration tariffs

By Marissa Ventrelli | Denver Gazette Colorado has joined a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration for imposing tariffs on about 90 different countries, Attorney General Phil Weiser and Gov. Jared Polis announced Wednesday. Weiser and Polis said the tariffs are "destroying our economy, increasing costs on Americans, plunging markets, and putting America on the track to a recession." The president has argued that the tariffs would reverse decades of what he called unfair treatment in the form of a trade deficit by the rest of the world. His trade policy, he said, would result in factories and jobs moving back to the United States. The states on the suit included Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, and New York. "Coloradans are already starting to feel the effects of the T...
Bennet, Weiser join Hands Off protest backed by radical activists, some sporting guillotine signs
Approved, COLORADO PEAK POLITICS, State

Bennet, Weiser join Hands Off protest backed by radical activists, some sporting guillotine signs

By Colorado Peak Politics The political left’s lemmings with nothing better to do in Denver on Easter weekend protested the Trump administration’s efforts to save critical programs from bankruptcy through the elimination of government waste and fraud. It looks like only the Colorado politicians who recently announced campaigns for governor — U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser — took advantage of the mass anger event to fuel those flames further and capitalize on their desperate need for attention. https://twitter.com/MichaelBennet/status/1913693551541526946 Interestingly, the state’s top law enforcement guy noted that he really enjoyed the signs, many of which called for violence. https://twitter.com/pweiser/status/1913668307775103352 The Colora...