Legal Commentary

Salazar Names Tom Strickland as Chief of Staff

By Jeralyn

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has named Tom Stickland, former U.S. Senate Candidate and U.S. Attorney for Colorado as his chief of staff.

[T]he choice of a former federal prosecutor also underscores Salazar's pledge to beef up the ethics of a department plagued by scandal.

An inspector general report last year outlined problems at the Mineral Management Service that included sexual misconduct and illicit gifts from energy companies to Interior employees.

Strickland is not a career prosecutor. He was U.S. Attorney under Clinton for two years, from 1999 to 2001. He took office the day after the Columbine shootings. His primary focus was prosecution of serious gun law violators. Previously, he lost the 1996 Senate election to Wayne Allard. He lost to Allard again in 2002. (Allard decided not to seek re-election this year and was replaced in November by Rep. Mark Udall.)

I'm a bigger fan of Strickland's than Salazar's. He's one of the very few politicians I asked TalkLeft readers to contribute money to. [More..]

As I wrote here in 2002 when he ran for Senate,

Strickland is highly critical of Bush's foreign policy. He thinks he has politicized the Iraq issue to validate his father. He thinks Saddam is a threat, but he doesn't favor attacking Iraq now as the way to eliminate him--not until we've exhausted every other reasonable means. He thinks we should be helping to re-build Afganistan and similar countries. By attacking the poverty, despair and hopelessness that is the daily existence of people in these countries, we can reduce the number of those drawn to terrorism and those most susceptible to being converted by the terrorists.

Strickland will be giving up a multi-million dollar salary/economic package as Chief Legal Officer of United Health Group to go back into public service. I'm not surprised.

Strickland endorsed Obama for President in January, 2008, after initially supporting Bill Richardson.

As for his environmental creds, the Denver Post reports:

Strickland oversaw the creation of Great Outdoors Colorado, which distributes state lottery funds for wildlife programs and open space. The Interior Department oversees "millions of acres of public lands in the West and will decide the pace of drilling and mining." Strickland will be good for that, as well as dealing with past ethical messes.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 21, 2009 (boomark / email).