The Denver Gazette published an Eric Sondermann column asking a blunt question about Jena Griswold’s run for Colorado attorney general: if your own life, money, kid, job, or freedom were on the line, would you hire the résumé-polished political operator with thin subject-matter mastery, or would you hire someone who had actually done the damn work?
I know it is weird to comment on another commentator’s comments, or maybe it is not, but here we are. Sondermann makes a perfect point about Griswold, and it deserves to be bumped straight to the top of the attention file.
His column argues that the attorney general is not some ceremonial political perch. It is the state’s chief legal office, overseeing roughly 270 attorneys and nearly 500 employees, handling everything from consumer protection and antitrust to criminal appeals, water law, civil rights, and legal counsel for state agencies. That is not a job for a partisan brand manager with a law degree gathering dust in the glove box.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Sondermann’s core question is devastating because it is simple: would you hire an inexperienced lawyer for your custody case, wage claim, malpractice defense, real estate fight, or criminal matter? Of course not. Nobody goes shopping for a parachute after asking, “Who gives the best speech at fundraisers?”
- Griswold graduated from law school in 2011, but Sondermann writes that her campaign could not point to a single matter she has litigated. Not one. Not even a parking ticket. That is not a résumé gap. That is the Grand Canyon with campaign buttons.
- The attorney general’s office is functionally the largest law firm in Colorado. If elected, Sondermann argues Griswold would be the least experienced and least qualified lawyer in the office she wants to run. That is like hiring the intern to captain the aircraft carrier because she has great yard signs.
- Sondermann contrasts Griswold with Democratic rivals he says bring actual legal expertise, including Hetal Doshi, Michael Dougherty, and David Seligman. In other words, this is not a left-right question. It is a competence question, which is apparently endangered in modern politics.
- He also hits Griswold’s management record, citing high staff turnover, complaints from former senior staffers, and the 2024 accidental release of voting system passwords in 63 of Colorado’s 64 counties. “Oops” is not a management philosophy.
My Bottom Line
Nobody hires a divorce attorney who has never handled custody. Nobody hires a wage-theft lawyer because they gave a fire speech at a fundraiser. Nobody says, “Sure, my life is collapsing, please send me the partisan brand manager.” Yet Colorado politics keeps serving up exactly that model and expecting applause.
Jena Griswold is the polished product of a Democratic machine that too often treats credentials, slogans, media hits, and ambition as substitutes for competence. It is politics by packaging. The box looks professional, the press release is crisp, and then you open it and find a résumé where the trial experience should be.
The attorney general job matters. It is not a stepping stone for someone climbing the next rung of the ambition ladder. It is not a place to cosplay legal toughness while staff attorneys do the actual work. It is not a campaign backdrop with subpoena power. It is a serious office that requires judgment, legal depth, discipline, and the humility to know what you do not know.
Sondermann’s question should follow every voter into the booth: if this were your case, your business, your kid, your rights, your water, your freedom, would you hire Jena Griswold to handle it? If the honest answer is no, then why on earth would Colorado hand her the biggest legal office in the state?
Source: The Denver Gazette
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