Michael J. Norton | |
---|---|
United States Attorney for the District of Colorado | |
In office 1988–1993 | |
President | Ronald Reagan George H. W. Bush |
Preceded by | Robert N. Miller |
Succeeded by | Henry Lawrence Solano |
Personal details | |
Spouse | Jane E. Norton |
Education | American University (J.D.),Denver Seminary (M.Div.) |
Michael J. Norton is an American attorney who was United States Attorney for the District of Colorado from 1988 to 1993,and who serves as council for conservative lobbying groups.
Norton received his J.D. in 1968 from American University. In 2009,Norton earned a Masters of Divinity (M.Div.) degree from Denver Seminary. [1]
Norton was nominated as attorney for the District of Colorado on March 24,1988. [2] As US Attorney,Norton oversaw expanded prosecution of cocaine and crack cocaine infractions during the crack epidemic. [3] [4]
Norton is council at Thomas N. Scheffel &Associates P.C. in Denver,and at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). [5] At ADF he focuses on law connected with opposition to legal abortion and opposition to birth control. Norton also currently serves on the board of directors of Colorado Family Action,a Christian fundamentalist lobbying organization. [1]
Norton is married to Jane E. Norton,Colorado Lieutenant Governor from 2003 to 2007. [1] Together,Michael and Jane Norton drafted Colorado Amendment 43. [6] This amendment prohibited gay marriage in Colorado.
Michael Norton represented Jack Phillips,a baker whose religious beliefs lead him to decline to make a wedding cake for a gay couple in 2012,at an early stage in Phillips's case. [6] The case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission would go before the US Supreme Court.
Gale Ann Norton is an American politician and attorney who served as the 48th United States Secretary of the Interior under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. A member of the Republican Party,she previously served as the 35th Attorney General of Colorado from 1991 to 1999. Norton was the first woman to hold each of those posts.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group that supports restricting rights and protections for LGBTQ people;expanding Christian practices within public schools and in government;and preventing access to abortion. ADF is headquartered in Scottsdale,Arizona,with branch offices in Washington,D.C. and New York,among other locations. The global arm,Alliance Defending Freedom International,which is headquartered in Vienna,Austria,operates in over 100 countries.
Colorado Amendment 43 was a referendum approved by the voters in 2006 that added a new section to Article II of the Colorado Constitution to define marriage in Colorado as only a union between one man and one woman. It passed with 56% of the vote.
Jane Ellen Norton was the 46th Lieutenant Governor of Colorado and an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Senator Michael Bennet in the 2010 election. She lost the nomination to Weld County District Attorney and Tea Party favorite Ken Buck. While in office,Norton was notable for leading a successful effort to outlaw gay marriage in Colorado.
Dudley W. Brown is an American gun rights lobbyist. He is the founder and president of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and president of the National Association for Gun Rights.
Greg Brophy is an American politician who served in the Colorado House of Representatives from the 63rd district from 2003 to 2005,and in the Colorado Senate from the 1st district from 2005 to 2015,as a member of the Republican Party.
Steve King is an American politician who served in the Colorado House of Representatives as a Republican in 2006 and served until January 2011. King was elected to the Colorado Senate in 2010,and was sworn in January 2011. He represented Senate District 7 which includes Mesa County and part of Garfield County. He did not run for reelection to the State Senate in 2014,so his term ended in January,2015.
The 2010 United States Senate election in Colorado took place on November 2,2010,alongside other elections to the United States Senate in other states as well as elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. In December 2008,President-elect Barack Obama nominated incumbent U.S. Senator Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior. After Salazar resigned from his seat,Democratic governor Bill Ritter appointed Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet to fill the seat.
Kenneth Robert Buck is an American lawyer and politician who represents Colorado's 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican. From March 30,2019,to March 27,2021,Buck served as chair of the Colorado Republican Party,having replaced Jeff Hays.
Monica Marie Márquez is an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. Previously a Deputy Colorado Attorney General,she was appointed by Governor Bill Ritter to the Supreme Court in 2010 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey. She was sworn in on December 10,2010.
Lesbian,gay,bisexual,and transgender (LGBT) persons in the U.S. state of Colorado enjoy the same rights as non-LGBT people. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in Colorado since 1972. Same-sex marriage has been recognized since October 2014,and the state enacted civil unions in 2013,which provide some of the rights and benefits of marriage. State law also prohibits discrimination on account of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment,housing and public accommodations and the use of conversion therapy on minors. In July 2020,Colorado became the 11th US state to abolish the gay panic defense.
Ray Scott is an American politician and a Republican member of the Colorado State Senate representing District 7 since January 7,2015. Scott served consecutively from January 12,2011 until January 9,2013 in the Colorado House of Representatives District 54 seat,and from January 9,2013 to January 7,2015 in the Colorado House of Representatives District 55 seat.
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,584 U.S. ___ (2018),was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States that dealt with whether owners of public accommodations can refuse certain services based on the First Amendment claims of free speech and free exercise of religion,and therefore be granted an exemption from laws ensuring non-discrimination in public accommodations—in particular,by refusing to provide creative services,such as making a custom wedding cake for the marriage of a gay couple,on the basis of the owner's religious beliefs.
The 2022 United States Senate election in Colorado will be held on November 8,2022,to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Colorado.
David Longly Bernhardt is an American lawyer who served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 2019 to 2021 during the presidency of Donald Trump. From 2017 to 2019,he served as the deputy secretary of the interior. Before serving in the Trump Administration,he was a shareholder at the Colorado law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck,where he was an oil and energy industry lobbyist and natural resources attorney. He began working for the United States Department of the Interior (DOI) in 2001,and served as the department's solicitor from 2006 to 2009,among other roles.
Family Policy Alliance (FPA),formerly CitizenLink and Focus on the Family Action,is an American conservative Christian organization that acts as the lobbying arm of Focus on the Family at the level of state government politics. It is an umbrella organization for an "alliance" of state organizations known as Family Policy Councils which are state-level Focus on the Family affiliates.
Kristen K. Waggoner is an American constitutional lawyer. She was the lead counsel in a case at the United States Supreme Court concerning First Amendment rights,Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In the lawsuit,Waggoner represented Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips. She currently serves as General Counsel of the Christian-oriented legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
Colorado Family Action (CFA) is a Christian fundamentalist lobbying organization founded in 2007. It opposes gay marriage or domestic partnership,gay adoption,and adoption by unmarried people. The organization advocates for conversion therapy,the pseudoscientific practice of trying to change sexual orientation. It fights against birth control access and legal marijuana.
Bustang is an intercity bus service in the U.S. state of Colorado. Service began in 2015 and originally traveled between Denver and Colorado Springs,Fort Collins,and Glenwood Springs. Service has since been expanded to connect Grand Junction,Durango,Gunnison,Alamosa,Pueblo,Fairplay and Lamar among others. It is Colorado's first state-run bus service. In 2021,the system had a ridership of 90,600,or about 1,800 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2022.