Following her graduation from law school, Norton worked as a senior attorney at the
Mountain States Legal Foundation from 1979 to 1983. Norton was a National Fellow at the
Hoover Institution during 1983–1984, before taking a position at the
U.S. Department of Agriculture as an assistant to Deputy Secretary
Richard Edmund Lyng. From 1985 to 1990, she served as Associate Solicitor for the
United States Department of the Interior, in which capacity she managed attorneys employed by the
National Park Service and the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Colorado Attorney General Norton returned to Colorado after her stint at the Department of the Interior, and was elected as the state's first female
Attorney General in 1991. As Attorney General, Norton led the state's attorneys in defending state laws, including Colorado Amendment 2, a 1992 state constitutional amendment that prohibited any level or branch of state government from recognizing homosexuals as a protected class. Challenges to Amendment 2 reached the United States Supreme Court, which invalidated the amendment in
Romer v. Evans (1996). Norton ran for election to the
U.S. Senate in
1996 as a Republican, but was defeated in the primary by then-U.S. Representative
Wayne Allard. During that year, Norton delivered a controversial speech in which she remarked that while state sovereignty had been misused to defend slavery prior to and during the
Civil War, with the end of the war, the United States "lost the idea that the states were to stand against the federal government having too much power over our lives". With the attorneys general of 45 other states, Norton participated in the negotiation of the
Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (entered into in 1998) a settlement of Medicaid lawsuits by the states against U.S. tobacco companies for the recovery of public health costs attributed to the treatment of smoking-related illnesses. She was succeeded by Idaho Governor
Dirk Kempthorne during the second term of the
administration of George W. Bush. On January 29, 2002, she served as the
designated survivor during President Bush's first
State of the Union Address. On September 17, 2009, the
United States Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into whether Norton's employment at
Royal Dutch Shell violated a law that bars federal employees from discussing employment with a company if the employee is involved in decisions that could benefit that company. The investigation focused on a 2006 decision by Norton's agency to grant
oil shale leases to Royal Dutch Shell. The DOJ closed the investigation in 2010, declining to press charges.
Post-government career At the time of her resignation as Secretary, Norton was considered "the Bush administration's leading advocate for expanding oil and gas drilling and other industrial interests in the West." After leaving Washington, she joined
Royal Dutch Shell as a general counsel in its exploration and production business. As of 2017, Norton worked for Norton Regulatory Strategies, an
Aurora-based consulting firm that deals with environmental regulations. In 2012, she also was a senior adviser for Clean Range Ventures, an energy venture capital firm. She serves as a board member for the
Federalist Society, the Reagan Alumni Association, the
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at the
University of Colorado. ==Electoral history==