In my public service career, I have focused on this question–how can we make government work best for people?  

In my experience, governments are too often driven by inertia, with public servants expected to ask “how have we always done things?” rather than being given the chance to ask “what’s the best way to get things done?” 

As your Attorney General, I have established innovation as a core value. I have made it clear that we focus on asking “what’s the best way to get stuff done?”, not “how we have always done things?”

Let me start with a quick story. When I was running for my first elected office to be your AG, I heard about the need to rehabilitate existing homes that were blighted in rural communities in southern Colorado. I also learned that the AG’s Office had a housing initiative using settlement funds. Great news! Except that the AG’s Office invested in a program focused on the Front Range, and had put the funds into that existing program without looking further. 

For me, we needed to do more.  We were missing an opportunity to meet an unaddressed need in rural Colorado, which too often gets lost in the shuffle. When I came on board, I asked “what’s the best way to do this?” As a result, we put $10M into a new program for southern Colorado, the Colorado Partnership for Education and Rural Revitalization (COPERR, discussed more in this post). 

As I travel our state, this is not an isolated case. I’ve also heard – can we reduce the time it takes to get the necessary steps set up for a new business? Can we take less time to build affordable housing projects? Legit questions. I’m ready to get to work on answering and solving them.

Here’s another story. When I was working with local governments to develop our nationally praised model of opioid response (more details are in this post), I asked – what do you need? They were very clear–access to the funds without unhelpful and burdensome bureaucratic requirements, explaining that too often getting funds from the state is a lengthy and costly ordeal. 

We listened and delivered, making the funds available immediately, with three requirements: (1) funds had to be spent on new programs to address the opioid crisis; (2) with complete transparency; and (3) with ongoing oversight. You would think this would be the norm. It’s not (as discussed in this article).

As Governor, I will appoint a Chief Innovation Officer to work with all state agencies to bring this collaborative and innovative mindset to all of our work, starting with our housing challenges (as I discuss here).  

At a time when state governments need to do more with less, we need entrepreneurial leadership and creative problem solving in government more than ever. As governor, I will work with national efforts like the Recoding America Fund and leading state efforts like Maryland’s to review what works and what doesn’t. We will build the 21st century infrastructure and processes we need to do better, and hire, train, and empower state employees to be successful.

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I believe our state government has a duty to our communities to deliver results. And getting stuff done cannot be achieved on auto-pilot. That’s why I have long called for entrepreneurial leadership in government and worked to update the operating model of how government works (see here and here, for examples). 

As your AG, I have done just that, and there’s much more I can and will do as our next governor. I am committed to always showing up, listening, and delivering results, using innovation and emerging technologies effectively and within proper guardrails. 

We will try new things to do better. Any ideas? Please join us and share them on how we can deliver on this commitment.