By Allie Winter, STATE BILL COLORADO
Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, doesn’t want branches of government to hire outside counsel, the way Gov. Ritter did last year, without a decent explanation. That’s why he’s sponsoring SB10-136, a bill that would require the governor or chief justice to put in writing why they need to hire a third-party lawyer instead of using state-funded Attorney General John Suthers.
Harvey referred to Ritter employing his former law firm, Hogan & Hartson, as an example of unnecessary money being spent. “We spent [thousands of dollars] to the governor’s former law firm to be able to do this service when the attorney general’s office most likely could have done it,” Harvey said.
While John Suthers’ camp is saying it’s neutral when it comes to this bill, Harvey said Suthers helped him with the wording of the bill to make sure that legally everything was correct.
The bill is not meant to prohibit the executive branch from doing what it wants to do, Harvey said, but it just makes them justify it.
He suspects there will be some opposition from the liberals in the General Assembly. “I think it will be interesting to see how the Democrats handle it,” he said. “[The bill] is bringing up the fact that Gov. Ritter did do that, and it puts limits on the government’s ability in the future.”
The bill is scheduled to be heard in a Senate State Affairs committee early next week.