Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the rule of law and free elections are under attack across America, but he struck a tone of unity and empathy Sunday during a Fourth of July visit to Durango.
His 12-minute speech at the Durango Community Recreation Center Amphitheater touched on four themes – the rule of law, voting rights/access to voting, campaign finance and “empathy versus demonization.”
Weiser is seeking a second term in 2022 as the state’s top legal adviser. He also took questions from the audience, which drew about 50 people before he went to Pagosa Springs for a parade.
Weiser said the “most painful example” of the rule of law being under attack is the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, when a mob including supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the building. A healthy part of the U.S. legal system calls for a commitment to due process and fairness, he said, and those responsible for the violence and vandalism during the riot will be held accountable, in accordance with the law.
“Everybody who was there on Jan. 6 taking pictures of themselves destroying government property or assaulting a police officer will be given a fair process, a trial, and if they can’t afford it, a lawyer to tell their story,” he said. “Part of the rule of law is giving everyone a chance to tell their story and have impartial judgment.”
Weiser said elections, which are backed by the rule of law, are also under attack. An example of that played out in Georgia, where the secretary of state and attorney general defended the state’s 2020 presidential election results from 15 challenges – “none of which had a shred of fraud,” he said.
Despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud, the state has since passed a new law that limits voting accessibility, he said, “which is why the U.S. Department of Justice is now suing Georgia for adopting a law that undermines voting rights.”
“The state of our voting rights is tenuous,” Weiser said.
Weiser, who served as a law clerk from 1995-96 for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said the justice was once asked which decision she would most like the court to overturn, and her answer was Citizens United, which was decided in 2010 and opened the door to unlimited election spending by corporations and labor unions.
Weiser said the ruling has a factual error, two legal errors and has had “a profound destructive effect on our elections.”
The first legal error was to call corporations people under the law: “Corporations are creatures of the law, they are not people,” he said. The second legal error was to say money is speech, he said.
It has led to a campaign fiance system awash in third-party spending that is not transparent and not subject to oversight, he said.
Finally, Weiser said the polarization and demonization among fellow Americans threatens to erode the country’s strengths. The country has endured “dark chapters,” in which groups have pushed a “dark agenda,” he said, but inclusion has always been America’s “true north.”
“When you demonize somebody else, you say they’re not worthy of being listened to, and that’s not democracy,” he said. ”Democracy is an ongoing conversation of respect.”
He pointed to the relationship between Justices Ginsberg and Antonin Scalia. Both had different ideologies, but they enjoyed a friendship and “conversation of respect,” he said.
Similarly, people can learn from incredible acts of introspection and forgiveness. Weiser recounted a story about former U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who led a civil rights march in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Lewis and other marchers were beaten by law enforcement officers, an event that became known as Bloody Sunday.
Years later, a man visited Lewis’ congressional office. The man said he was on the bridge and was one of the people who beat Lewis. Lewis said, “I forgive you,” Weiser said.
“If we start hating everybody, then there is nobody left,” Weiser said. “... The challenge for all of us is how do we be our best authentic self? How do we lead with empathy and not give into this hate?”
A generation of students is growing up thinking politics is tribalized as opposed to an exchange of ideas, he said.
“Those are very different visions,” Weiser said. “One of them leads to civil war, the other leads toward a more perfect union.”
He shared several other examples of famous leaders who had ideological disagreements but were able to maintain civility and mutual respect.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson disagreed on a number of issues, he said, but they did it over a number of years via letter-writing. Both died on July 4, 1826 – 50 years after the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
“That’s American democracy at work,” Weiser said. “We are not engaged in a war or in tribalized politics where we hate one another. That’s not the history of this country, and we cannot allow it to be our future.”
shane@durangoherald.com
