Colorado has not had a permanent U.S. attorney since last summer. In fact, all 93 U.S. attorney positions throughout the country are vacant because President Donald Trump has not yet nominated new ones. We understand that he’s been busy with a lot and probably isn’t overly fond of lawyers these days, but justice and the rule of law require stability and leadership that acting U.S. attorneys often cannot provide.

The vacancies themselves are not unusual for a new administration. Customarily, all U.S. attorneys resign after an election to allow a new president to fill the positions. So when Colorado’s previous U.S. attorney, John Walsh, announced his resignation in July last year, it was surprising only in that it was so early.

Many more U.S. attorneys resigned over the following months, and when Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March asked the 46 holdouts from the Obama administration to leave, it was consistent with past practice.

Trump and Sessions have not yet filled those vacancies. The administration might make excuses that the Senate is not acting quickly enough on confirmations, but when the president has nominated no one, it is hard to hold a confirmation hearing.

In Colorado, Bob Troyer, who has more than a decade total experience in the U.S. attorney’s office, has served ably as acting U.S. attorney. He has overseen some important cases in the past 11 months, including convictions or plea deals in the cases of an Ohio man who enticed a Colorado minor in an attempt to produce child pornography, a Pueblo man on gun and drug charges and a Lakewood man who filed false tax returns. We’ve also appreciated his leadership in developing trust between federal officials and Muslims in Colorado.

U.S. attorneys fill a vital, dual role in the Justice Department. They are political appointees who work to implement the legal agenda of the president and attorney general. At the same time they serve all Americans by enforcing federal laws.

Yet implementing a cohesive federal policy agenda, let alone local reforms, is tough for someone who is in the office on an interim basis. The lack of permanence hinders building relationships with law enforcement and other federal agencies. Why work to get to know the short-timer when he could be gone at any time?

Such uncertainty makes serving the public all the more difficult.

Max Stier, president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, likens the situation to having a substitute teacher. “They might be a wonderful educator, but if someone is a substitute teacher, they’re not perceived as having the real authority, they don’t view themselves as being responsible for the long term or, in most instances, taking on the challenging problems because they know someone else is coming in real soon,” he told an interviewer.

The president has left a dismaying number of federal offices unfilled, but the U.S. attorneys are among the most troubling. Without people fully empowered to do the job, Trump administration policy priorities, like increased immigration enforcement, languish.

Maybe Troyer is the right man for the job permanently. If so, Trump should nominate him. If not, choose someone else and give Colorado the stable legal leadership it needs. A year is a long time to be “acting” anything.

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