DENVER (Legal Newsline)-Canon City attorney and Democratic Party leader Dan Slater will officially announce that he will be in the running for the state attorney general post later this week.
The post is now held by Republican John Suthers. Slater will be the first declared Democrat seeking to replace Suthers.
Slater told the Canon City Daily Record: "I think there is a clear difference in terms of the vision that I have, and I think most Coloradans have, for the office of attorney general, and the vision that the current attorney general has for the office."
Slater received his bachelor's degree in 1994 from the University of Oklahoma and his law degree from Washington College of Law at American University.
Currently he resides in Canon City, Colo., where he has a private practice law firm which specializes in personal injury, real estate, employment law, general civil litigation and small business law.
For the last eight years, Slater has been chairman for the Judicial Performance Commission. In 2004, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association named him "Young Lawyer of the Year."
Suthers will be strong competition for Slater, political observers say. Suthers, who has served six years as attorney general when his current term ends next year, is the most powerful Republican elected official in the state.
Slater has never held an elected position and will be running on the strength of his ideas rather than experience.