Colorado’s state government is complex, managing services from health care and wildfire mitigation to air quality and snow plowing. Coloradans rely on it daily for basic needs, services, and safety. They have a right to expect good results.

As attorney general, I am the chief executive of the Department of Law, a large, multi-faceted state agency. I have also held senior leadership positions in non-profit, federal government, and higher education organizations. I have deep, wide ranging executive experience, and as AG, have a unique, comprehensive vantage point on all aspects of Colorado state government. As AG, I represent every state agency and the governor, Treasurer, and Secretary of State in all legal matters. And I serve as the state’s top lawyer to defend our rights. I know the state workforce, how the state government operates, and the laws that govern it. As attorney general, I manage a budget of over $100 million and a workforce of roughly 650 employees. And our department has–for all three cycles during my term–received the top engagement score of any department in state government. I am prepared and ready for the work ahead to lead our state government as governor on day one. 

As governor, I will drive top-level responsiveness, effectiveness, professionalism, fiscal discipline, transparency, and accountability across all aspects of the government—so taxpayers get the best value for their tax dollars. 

Making Government Responsive to the People

All of us have known what it’s like to not look forward to interacting with a government agency—whether bracing for an endless wait at the DMV for a driver’s license renewal; expecting to be placed on hold for hours before being able to talk to a government official; waiting weeks or months to get authorizations required for a business; or reporting a road pothole and wondering whether a response will  ever come back.

Our state government should always be responsive to the taxpayers who fund it. On day one as governor, I will sign an executive order directing that any taxpayer who calls, emails, or contacts an agency must receive a returned call or response within 48 hours. We will make citizen engagement with state government more efficient, improve response times, and find efficiencies. To make this a focus, I will sign an executive order establishing a team within the Governor’s Office dedicated to improving state operations and performance management .

The responsiveness of our state government to the people of Colorado is what Coloradans have a right to expect. To deliver on that promise, I will improve government performance through innovation and a focus on results. 

Required Regulatory Rule Reviews

Government regulations should be necessary, understandable, able to be complied with, transparent, and not excessive. These principles guided the Colorado Privacy Act rulemaking that I led as attorney general. As governor, I will issue an executive order on day one requiring all Executive branch rulemakings to follow these principles. These principles include a commitment to listening, reflection, continuous improvement, and transparency.

As in any business, the state should consistently evaluate the effectiveness of its rules and update or eliminate outdated rules that are no longer useful. In 2012, Governor Hickenlooper issued Executive Order D 2012-002, requiring all cabinet agencies to comprehensively review each and every one of their rules. The review included updating rules to make them more readable and understandable, reducing and eliminating regulatory burdens no longer necessary, and repealing rules that no longer served a useful purpose. On day one as governor, I will sign an executive order calling for a rigorous regulatory review and ensuring that Colorado’s regulations are done in a sensible manner where the benefits outweigh the costs.

A State Workforce Rooted in Nonpartisan Professionalism

Colorado taxpayers deserve a high performing state government with top talent that is hired, trained, and retained based on quality. As governor, I will ensure that government hiring practices prioritize merit, experience, and qualifications—not partisanship.

I will also be a committed partner with Colorado WINS, which represents the state’s classified workforce. In this partnership, the Governor’s Office will have a regular dialogue to exchange ideas on how best to support and grow qualified public servants and to make state employment a career path that is sought after and valued. This will include developing creative strategies on recruitment to under-staffed positions, a dialogue on how to ensure effective training strategies, and a commitment to learning from those employees on the front lines. 

Tackling Colorado’s Budget Challenges

We are at a crossroads with our state budget. In the 2025 regular legislative session, the state had to make difficult reductions to ensure the state’s budget was balanced, a requirement in our state constitution. This included, for example, delaying and cutting funds for transportation and infrastructure projects, slashing the Revitalizing Main Street Program, and reducing funding for K-12 bullying prevention initiatives. 

Unfortunately, these challenges were further exacerbated by reckless federal spending policies from Congress in H.R. 1—which contained tax policies and health care cuts that  harm Colorado. This required significant program cuts to Colorado’s state budget through a 2025 special session and subsequent executive actions, cuts that are expected to continue in the 2026 regular session. For the state’s budget to recover and remain solvent and healthy, particularly during economic recessions, I will take added steps as governor.

• Procurement and Contracting Updates. To lead us through the difficult budget years to come, I will ensure that the state government is fiscally disciplined to get the best value for each and every taxpayer dollar. With the volume of state services and purchases, one core way to do this is through updating and streamlining procurement processes that leverage competitive bidding for the benefit of Colorado taxpayers.

• Program Evaluation and Responsiveness. To find efficiencies, I will direct state agencies to identify under-utilized programs and services as well as programs that are not delivering results, with the goal of redirecting scarce resources to services that are critical to Coloradans. With the charge to repurpose existing resources, a Program Evaluation and Responsiveness Team in the Governor’s Office will lead the review and analysis of state programs, offices, and services for effectiveness. We will drive for smarter investments of taxpayer dollars by repurposing funds to Coloradans’ most pressing needs. 

• Cracking Down on Fraud. As governor, I will work to ensure all taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and lawfully. To that end, I will promote and partner with the Office of the State Auditor Fraud Hotline and ensure any allegations of government fraud are fully investigated. And if violations are found, using the Colorado False Claims Act—which I wrote as attorney general and championed at the legislature— perpetrators will be held accountable and defrauded taxpayer monies returned.

• Updating Constitutional Restrictions on the Budget that Limit Responsible Saving and Investments in our Future. Efficiencies alone will not address the state’s fiscal constraints. We have a balanced budget mandate in our state constitution that requires state leaders to be sound stewards of our finances. Current law dictated by TABOR imposes constraints on top of that requirement, creating unwise and unworkable conflicts. In bad economic years, we must make painful cuts that hurt our most vulnerable; yet, in good economic years, with higher revenue coming in, we’re prevented from saving or investing these surplus dollars for our future. It’s time we fix these problems so we can invest in and plan responsibly for our future. As governor, I will work to build support, in a grassroots, bottom-up effort to change our constitutional limits on how we fund our core priorities and on how we are restricted from making critical investments for our future. We will consider and evaluate a range of options, such as allowing the state to keep and transparently invest excess dollars we collect in good economic times. By engaging voters in this bottom-up dialogue, we can identify the best possible changes for our future and build support for what the voters are most likely to accept. Unlike top-down approaches, this bottom-up strategy will best position us to develop the best approach at the ballot box.  

• Protecting Colorado’s General Fund Reserve for Tough Times. While the economy has had years of solid performance, the state must plan for future recessions. We must be ready to ensure critical state services and safety net programs continue during revenue downturns—particularly services for the most vulnerable and core government functions like health care, K-12 education, and higher education. Best practices call for setting aside reserves amounting to 2 months (16.7 percent) of annual expenses. The General Assembly and current Administration have made excellent strides in building up the current General Fund reserve to 15 percent prior to the recent special session. Now that the state is faced with Congress-induced budgetary pressures (and not from recession-caused revenue shortfalls), it’s of even greater importance to resist the urge to balance the budget using critical reserve monies. As governor, I will stand firm against using reserve funds except at difficult economic times when people rely on government support the most.

Ensuring Government Always Follows and Upholds Our Laws

As your attorney general, my guiding principle has been to always uphold the rule of law. This means challenging those who act outside the law and hurt Colorado—with zero consideration of politics. That included supporting a lawsuit against the Biden Administration when it approved a project that could harm the Colorado River and Western Slope residents, and suing the Trump White House each time it, or Trump cabinet members, acted above the law. 

This is a core principle that I will stand for as governor. And I will hold the state government and its political subdivisions accountable to our laws as well—just as I did when my office went to the Colorado Supreme Court court to stop Weld County from drawing new commission district lines for its members—lines that unlawfully diluted the voting power of Greeley minority communities while using a process that was not transparent and violated state laws. I will always hold our state government to that same principle.

Innovation in State Government

Colorado’s government is tasked with leading the state through some of the most complex challenges facing residents, businesses, and organizations. That’s why our state government must be creative, innovative, and change-minded.

As governor, I will establish a Colorado Innovation Team, led by a Chief Innovation Officer, to deploy data-driven and responsive solutions to Colorado’s most pressing issues. This work will start with a focus on housing affordability in collaboration with our new Chief Housing Officer and Housing Innovation and Coordination Officer. This team will work, in a variety of domains, to elevate collaborative solutions and break through institutional inertia with visible solutions. As governor, I will leverage creative and innovative thinking in state government to tackle our toughest challenges.