CO Motor Carriers Association Prez decries one of AG Weiser's MANY lawsuits. The CO Supreme Court FINALLY comes up with racial bias rules for jury selection.
Greg Fulton, president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, decries one of AG Weiser's MANY lawsuits.
I wrote about AG Weiser's campaign-related (oops! I meant "rule of law"-related) lawsuit spree a few days back, that Weiser is using your money to sue, and in so doing is working to keep your taxes and prices higher. See the first link below if you'd like the context.
Not long after I saw the Colorado Politics article linked second below. It is trucking industry president Fulton's response to one of Weiser's latest lawsuits.
Weiser is suing (in this case) to maintain is a California rule that Hickenlooper and Polis have both tied us to, a rule that puts standards on not just passenger vehicles, but also medium and heavy duty freight carriers.
These standards might please some on paper, they might make good copy for someone running for governor, but in reality they're beyond challenging to implement. This is readily apparent to anyone who is in the industry or, I suppose, who bothered to talk to those in the industry.
Quoting the article:
"Greg Fulton, president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, argued that the lawsuit is frivolous, as the emissions standards are nearly impossible for his industry to achieve by the target date. According to Fulton, California itself hasn't even met its own emissions standards."
In a fit of what could only be called reason, Fulton goes on to argue that perhaps there are ways to make significant dents in emissions with existing technology, while at the same time not requiring either crippling increases in price or public subsidies.
Again, Fulton gives a look in on the real world, as it is right now and not the world of law and of political posturing for effect.
Quoting again with links intact:
"Like any new industry, 'zero emission' vehicles are constantly evolving, which is another reason why Fulton said he feels the state should focus on other strategies. 'This is one of those things where it almost feels like we're pushing the string in some ways,' he said. 'We're trying to force this issue too soon, rather than letting it evolve. That doesn't mean we can't make substantial emissions reductions. It's just that certain technologies are gonna take longer,' he said. Fulton said he's also wondering why Weiser chose to take up this lawsuit at a time when the state is facing significant financial challenges. 'Why would be spending time and resources on this effort, rather than taking some of that time and resources and saying, "Okay, let's look at these other strategies,' or a game plan that can actually achieve greater reductions that fits well with this industry at this time?"'"
As I wrote before, whether he intends this or not, AG Weiser is not on the side of making life more affordable and easier for everyday people. I think, given the reality of electric heavy trucks and the California rules we're tied to (rules he's trying to KEEP us tied to), you could even argue that Weiser isn't on the side of reality.
Perhaps his zeal to show his Trump-resisting bona fides to Democrat voters here in Colorado got the better of him.
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/what-is-public-media-doing-so-were?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/trucking-industry-questions-ag-challenge-of-vehicle-emission-standards/article_153e6525-1cf6-4ed1-8106-3ff6c00e4c24.html
Related:
Colorado Newsline (see the link below) gives Phil Weiser a glow-up for his work on lawsuits.
Far from balanced (I don't know that I saw a response by anyone on the other side of the 20 some lawsuits Weiser has signed us onto or pursued directly.
Oh, and you'll also note how it's Weiser at the forefront again and again in the piece. "Weiser and ..." is used so often it makes one wonder if the Newsline reporter here programmed a custom keyboard shortcut Cntrl+Shift+Weiser or some such.
More praise for our AG from Newsline link below.
https://coloradonewsline.com/2025/06/23/colorado-rulings-lawsuits-trump-policies/
The CO Supreme Court FINALLY comes up with racial bias rules for jury selection.
The Colorado Supreme Court has been dragging its feet on racial bias rules for jury selection for a while now (see the first link below for earlier newsletter from 10/2023 where I gave an update and said we were, even then, still waiting on the justices to do finalize the rule).
Per the Colorado Politics article linked second below, we are finally at the point where an end to the process is in sight. That is, it seems as though the justices and the committee tasked with coming up with the rule are zeroing in on the target.**
The history and law involved in the latest version of the rules to come from the Colorado Supreme Court (now awaiting comment from the advisory committee) is lengthy and not something I want to spend time on here. If you're curious, I refer you to the article.
The short version is this:
--Per a Federal court ruling from 40 years ago, striking a potential juror for blatantly racist reasons is not allowed. If someone suspects a juror has been challenged due solely to their race, they may challenge that striking and a racially neutral reason must be forthcoming to sustain the challenge.
--Some in Colorado were proposing to add to this ruling by expanding the list of what could be considered a facially racist dismissal to include things like (quoting the article with links intact):
"...dismissing a juror of color for expressing distrust of police, living in a "high-crime neighborhood," or having prior contact with law enforcement."
Or also (again quoting with links intact:
"...removing jurors for their demeanor — like when an El Paso County prosecutor dismissed a Black woman who allegedly had a 'sour look on her face.'"
--In a greatly (overly?) simplified sense, what the Colorado Supreme Court came up with was a rule that toned some of this down. You could approximate what they offered by saying that rather than strict rules on what constitutes racist juror challenges, the justices offered a framework, a schematic, for a hearing to determine whether or not a juror was excluded for racial reasons. Ah, hearings: lifetime employment for judges.
I'm sure the justices, as they hashed out this rule in their meetings, felt like they were laying down something that could be equally and easily applied from now til forever, but the more I read of how our legal system actually works, the more skeptical I am about those sorts of thoughts.
"Kicking the can down the road" is not the right metaphor. But the idea that the words float down out of the Supreme court and solve the problem is not how this works either. Reading what they actually wrote, the standards that they put in, it strikes me that this is an invitation to more argument about motive. It looks like (as I hint at above) more opportunities for hearings, decisions, appeals, etc.
Don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying that I want racial bias, or am okay with it as long as it's (winky-winky) hidden, nor am I saying that I have some better approach. What I am saying is that this is a tough issue and not one that can be fixed by rules or standards or some rubric a single group of humans thought up.
People are different and they see things differently. Show them all the same rule ask them to make a decision based on it and I bet you see a spectrum of how the rule is applied.
I fail to see how this long-awaited policy is an improvement over deciding controversies about racial bias in jury selection because I think this rule will result in the same amount of arguing. That is, this whole effort, while it made some feel good to have something written in a book so we can point to as an example of how forward-thinking we all are, has mostly been a waste of time.
**Part of the lengthy delay, per one of the Supreme Court justices, was to give the court time to rule on some cases that touched on racial bias in jury selection.
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/blue-books-are-out-an-actual-factual?utm_source=publication-search
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/courts/colorado-supreme-court-reaches-consensus-on-stalled-racial-bias-rule/article_d75ea57c-818d-4703-87df-eafd8457f631.html