August 14, 2013 01:16 PM UTC

Rep. Polis: Attorney General Eric Holder Should Resign

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Fort Collins Coloradoan's Patrick Malone reports:

Domestic spying practices top the list of reasons that Fort Collins’ representative in Congress says U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder should go.

“I would be very happy to see him leave,” U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., told the Fort Collins Coloradoan on Wednesday.

The federal government’s wiretapping of some members of the press and the National Security Agency’s surveillance of citizens’ phone and Internet records are foremost among the reasons Polis contends Holder should step down or be removed as the nation’s top law enforcer…

But Polis’ gripes with Holder don’t end with domestic spying.

“I’m no fan of Eric Holder for a number of reasons,” Polis said.

He contends that Holder has ignored abuse of prosecutorial discretion within the U.S. Department of Justice and has complicated Colorado’s course moving forward with voter-approved legalization of recreational marijuana by staying mum.

Rep. Jared Polis becomes the second Colorado Democrat in Congress after Sen. Mark Udall to break with the Obama administration on the matter of National Security Agency surveillance programs–which have been ramping up and operating at least since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but not curtailed by Obama as he promised when campaigning for President in 2008. Polis' call for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder goes a step further than Sen. Udall, who is only calling (publicly, anyway) for greater transparency.

Polis has been a longtime advocate for marijuana decriminalization at the federal level–or failing that, at least respect at the federal level for Colorado law, which legalized the drug for medical and more recently for general use. Marijuana proponents in Colorado generally look to Polis as a liason with the Obama administration on the issue, so it will be interesting to see what develops from his new harder line.