Denver Gazette’s Marissa Ventrelli reports that Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined 21 fellow Democratic attorneys general in urging Congress to force Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to remove masks during enforcement actions—citing concerns over accountability and public trust.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Coalition of Convenience: Twenty‐two Democratic AGs, led in part by Weiser, penned a letter backing Sen. Alex Padilla’s VISIBLE Act to bar masked or plainclothes ICE agents from hiding their identities during raids .
- Transparency Talk: Weiser insists that secretive tactics “undermine public trust” and that agents must be “identifiable and accountable” to Coloradans .
- Federal vs. State: The coalition urges both the House and Senate to impose a new federal mandate—ironically mirroring Polis‐era COVID mask rules that Weiser once defended at home .
- ICE Pushback: ICE maintains agents already wear badges and must identify themselves “as soon as it is safe,” calling legislative fixes redundant .
- Virtue Signal Central: For Weiser, this is another chance to posture against the Trump administration—while Colorado’s streets grow less safe under his watch.
My Bottom Line
Let’s rip off the Band-Aid: Phil Weiser has been Colorado’s “chief law enforcement officer” since January 2019, yet most Coloradans can’t point to a single public‐safety triumph on his résumé. Instead, he’s perfected the art of virtue signaling—from cheering on Polis’s face-diaper mandates to wagging his finger at ICE agents for wearing face coverings that might literally save their lives.
Meanwhile, real crime in Colorado has exploded since he took office. Violent crime rates shot up from roughly 393 crimes per 100,000 people in 2019 to a staggering 500 per 100,000 by 2022—a jaw-dropping 27% surge that ranks Colorado eighth‐highest in the nation (Common Sense Institute). Homicides, aggravated assaults, and robberies have all climbed, yet Weiser’s answer is to join a DC letter‐writing campaign rather than prosecute criminals or support real‐world safety reforms.
Does that sound like “justice” to you? Not environmental justice, not social justice, not climate justice—just old-fashioned justice. The kind where bad actors get locked up and law-abiding communities feel protected. But under Weiser’s watch, you’re more likely to see press releases about Texas border politics than any meaningful crackdown on Colorado’s crime wave.
And let’s not pretend this mask crusade is anything but political theater. Remember 2020, when Weiser backed Polis’s draconian mask edicts? He championed the governor’s plan to muzzle churchgoers, small-business patrons, and schoolkids—only to pivot to a holier-than-thou stance about ICE agents needing “transparency.” It’s the same warm, fuzzy hand-wringing, just pointed at a different target because Democrats say so.
What has Weiser actually done? He’s launched a handful of task forces, talked up consumer protections against Big Tech, and filed lawsuit after lawsuit against federal policies—yet crime remains unchecked, prosecutors are bogged down, and Coloradans feel less safe every year. If “Almost Governor” is his fitting nickname, it should come with an asterisk: he’s done almost nothing to make Colorado safer.
Now he’s angling for the governor’s mansion, thirsting to trade the AG’s cushy office for the executive suite. But unless Weiser can show a track record of locking up violent felons, shrinking the crime rate, and restoring public confidence, the only thing flowing into his re-election coffers should be refunds for wasted donations. Coloradans deserve an AG—and a governor—who puts public safety over political posturing. Phil Weiser? He’s neither a crime fighter nor a public-safety champion; he’s a DC‐obsessed bureaucrat best left in the ivory tower he’s helped build.
