Colorado's New Attorney General Phil Weiser To Break With Status Quo

DENVER (CBS4)- Colorado's new Attorney General is shaking things up. Phil Weiser, who calls himself the "People's Lawyer," is the first Attorney General in the country to appoint an innovation chief.

Weiser says it will not be business as usual in the Colorado Department of Law.

"We're not just doing the same old, same old. I'm going to be a different type of Attorney General."

As the top law enforcement officer in the state, Weiser says he will not only defend the law, but work to strengthen it. He says he is collaborating with lawmakers on a wide range of legislation, including a bill to block robo calls.

"I literally got one just the other day, a robo call that was threatening me with criminal prosecution if I didn't call this resource."

From consumer protection to criminal justice reform, Weiser says he's pushing to expunge certain marijuana convictions and increase funding for alternative prison sentences, particularly for juveniles and drug addicts.

"In Alamosa County, for example, 90 percent of the people in the jail are opioid users. They're not getting drug treatment, they're being put in jail. We've got to do better."

People also shouldn't be jailed, he says, just because they're too poor to pay bail.

"Too often what happens is you sit in jail. And you sit and you sit and then you say, 'I'll just plead guilty so I can get out.' That's not justice. If you are not a threat, you should get out, don't pay anything. By the way, if you are a threat, I don't care how much money you have you should stay in jail."

Weiser says he will work more closely with local governments, creating a unit to help prosecutors re-examine certain convictions, and a unit to help cities understand fracking regulations. He says he will defend communities with so-called sanctuary city policies and fight those that try to sell their water rights, saying the state faces a day of reckoning.

"The day of reckoning is whether or not we're going to be able to manage with less water and more people."

Weiser will also be a change agent nationally. He's joined a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma over the opioid epidemic as well as suits against the Trump administration over new rules restricting birth control and abortion and a citizenship question the administration wants to add to the census.