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Brief
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar attends an event where President Barack Obama announced the administration’s new gun law proposals in the Eisenhower Executive Office building, on January 16, 2012, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new ambassador to Mexico.
“Colorado is proud that one of our great statesmen will be representing the United States in Mexico,” Gov. Polis said in a press release Wednesday morning. “Ken Salazar was confirmed this morning by the United States Senate as Ambassador to Mexico. I congratulate my good friend Ambassador Salazar on his confirmation and look forward to working with him to expand our economic and cultural ties between Mexico and Colorado.”
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Salazar was the first Latino elected to statewide office in Colorado when he was elected as the Colorado attorney general in 1998. Salazar also served in the U.S. Senate, representing Colorado from 2005 until 2009, when he retired from the Senate after being nominated by former President Barack Obama to serve as the secretary of the Interior Department.
Salazar, a fifth-generation Coloradan, was born in Alamosa and raised on a family ranch. Salazar joined WilmerHale, a law firm with a branch in Denver, in 2013, according to the WilmerHale website.
On June 15, President Joe Biden announced Salazar and eight others as the ambassadors that he would submit to the Senate for confirmation. Both Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper supported Salazar’s nomination.
“Ken Salazar is an exceptional leader who has served Colorado and our country at the highest levels. As ambassador to Mexico he will revitalize the relationship with a neighbor, ally, and one of our biggest trading partners,” Hickenlooper said in a press release on June 15.
“President Biden has made a terrific choice in nominating Ken Salazar as the next Ambassador to Mexico,” Bennet said in the same press release. “Ken is a tremendous public servant with a strong record of bipartisanship in the United States Senate. He has always led with integrity, and I have great confidence in his ability to represent the United States.”
An ambassador is the U.S. president’s representative to a country, and normally leads the embassy in the country he or she is the ambassador to, according to the National Museum of American Diplomacy website.
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