Ken Salazar has been a high-profile politician in Colorado and nationally for nearly four decades, recently returning home after serving as ambassador to Mexico in the Biden administration. A logical question for the Democrat is, “What’s next?”
He’s writing a book. He’s spending time with his family in Denver and helping out on the Salazar family ranch in the San Luis Valley.
And the former U.S. senator and interior secretary is thinking through his next move.
“I know what the options are. I could run for governor, and I might. I could run for national office and there’s only one and I might do that: the presidency,” Salazar said. “I want to listen to the people and see what their feelings are, what went wrong. How could we have gotten to this point in American history where we’re turning back the clock on 70 years of civil rights?”
Salazar is also concerned that the 25% percent tariffs imposed on Mexico and Canada will unravel the integrated economy in North America that has benefitted all the countries. The potential for trade wars ignited by the tariffs will endanger one of the world’s most important trading blocs, he said.
While in the U.S. Senate, Salazar was part of a bipartisan group that steered a comprehensive immigration reform bill through the chamber in 2007. The bill, which included beefing up security at the border and a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, died in the House and legislation the following year didn’t even make it out of the Senate.
Salazar believes making the U.S.-Mexico border secure is important and he favors deporting criminals, but said the Trump administration’s “weaponization” of the issue and the deportations are hurting people and will hinder efforts to find common sense solutions.
Salazar, 70, headed Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources; served as state attorney general; U.S. senator; interior secretary in the Obama administration; and as ambassador to Mexico.
“I’m looking forward to being on the playing field,” Salazar said. “It may be that I’m just an adviser in helping correct the direction that we’re in.”
But first, he wants to finish his book. The working title is “Borderland: Making America Great, a United and Inclusive America.” Although part of that might have a familiar ring, Salazar pointed out that there’s no “again” in the title.
“It’s a march toward a more perfect union. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last 70 years,” Salazar said.
However, that progress is at risk given the policies of the Trump administration, Salazar said. He believes the executive orders eliminating government programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI, are wrong.
“That’s an America I have worked for all of my life,” Salazar said. “Whenever I talk about an inclusive America, it means you have to have everybody at the table, not just the billionaires.”
Salazar recalled a speech by former Gov. Roy Romer, whose administration he served in. Romer gave a speech in the late 1980s in Lamar where the crowd was mostly white and conservative.
“Romer said we should not just tolerate our diversity, we should celebrate our diversity. He was ahead of his time,” Salazar said.
A photo of Romer and his wife with Salazar and his family hangs on the wall of an office in Salazar’s northwest Denver home. Pictures of Salazar with former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden are mixed with family photos and portraits of his mother and father. His chairs from his Senate and Department of the Interior offices ring his desk.
Salazar’s cowboy hat, which along with boots and bolo tie is a signature part of his wardrobe, has its own place in the large book shelf behind his desk. Salazar’s wife, Hope, dropped by the office to greet visitors while one of three granddaughters played downstairs.
An official homecoming for Salazar is set for Sunday at the Denver Art Museum. Colorado Senators and fellow Democrats Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper organized the event.
“Ken’s contributions to our community — and our nation — run just as deep as his roots here in Colorado. He sets a high bar for what it means to be a public servant,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more excited to have him back home after his time representing the U.S. in Mexico.”
Salazar, a moderate who sometimes went against the grain of his own party, agreed with some of the criticism of the Democrats’ response to Trump pushing the boundaries of executive power. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s recent vote for the Republicans’ short short-term spending bill unleashed outrage from people who wanted Democrats to defy the administration’s cutting of federal agencies and employees.
“I think Democrats have to do what (House minority leader) Hakeem Jeffries and John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet did and that’s fight and resist what Donald Trump is doing,” Salazar said.
He said he’s proud of all the Democratic members of Colorado’s congressional delegation. Still, he believes Democrats have to address Americans’ fears about secure borders. Salazar said the Biden administration finally took steps that slowed illegal border crossings to numbers lower than the last months of the first Trump administration.
Salazar supports a border-security agreement with Canada and Mexico that would be similar to the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement negotiated by Trump in his first term as president.
The Democratic party also needs to take seriously the feeling that a lot of rural America has been left behind, Salazar said. He sees the evidence every time he drives to the family ranch near Manassa in the San Luis Valley. “Almost everything is shut down.”
The Salazar family’s roots in northern New Mexico and the San Luis Valley in southwest Colorado stretch to four centuries, about 250 years before the land was part of the U.S.
“As rural America dies on the vine, those places become redder and redder,” Salazar said. “The Republican Party, in my view, doesn’t really care. They talk a good game.”
But the Democratic Party “has not been very effective at showing its presences or concerns about rural America.”