Who is ken salazar

Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. In , Mr. Salazar was elected as Colorado Attorney General and became the first Latino ever elected to statewide office in Colorado. He was reelected as Attorney General in In , President Obama nominated Mr.

Ambassador Salazar has been a lifelong fighter for civil rights and the inclusion of Latinos in the American dream. Ambassador Salazar was named a partner at WilmerHale in He worked to help veterans in rural communities get better access to health care by creating the Office of Rural Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs and by pressing that agency to open new rural outreach clinics in Colorado. He also exercised a leadership role in championing a new defense and foreign policy that restores American security and influence around the world and pressed for a change in mission in Iraq to better advance America's national security interests.

Salazar worked to strengthen our military to ensure that we are able to confront emerging threats. From to , Salazar served as Colorado's thirty-sixth Attorney General, winning statewide elections in and He chaired the Conference of Western Attorneys General and received the Profiles in Courage award from his fellow state attorneys general for his dedication to preserving and promoting the rule of law.

From to Salazar served in the Cabinet of Gov. Roy Romer as chief legal counsel and executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, where he crafted reforms for oil, mining, and gas operations to better protect the environment and the public. He fought to uphold Colorado's interstate water compacts, created the Youth in Natural Resources program to educate thousands of young people about Colorado's natural resources, and authored the Colorado constitutional amendment creating Great Outdoors Colorado.

Salazar announced in March that he planned to run for the open seat. The candidates differed principally on tax policy. Coors, on the other hand, proposed making all President George W. Senate since House of Representatives the same day to represent a Colorado district, making the Salazar brothers the second pair of Hispanic brothers to serve simultaneously in Congress.

Ken Salazar consistently resisted attempts to label him as an advocate for Hispanic issues. He voted with Republicans to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits, enhance bankruptcy rules, and confirm Judge John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. As the debate about exploration in the ANWR intensified, Salazar pushed his colleagues to seek long-term solutions to meet energy needs. Salazar was also intimately involved in grueling negotiations in and within the Senate and with President George W.

Bush to craft comprehensive immigration legislation. The bill featured provisions for border security and a guest worker program for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on January 20, He also continued to support the forms of renewable energy that he had championed as a legislator.

In his farewell address, Salazar traced his North American ancestry back to the s.