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Bill Ritter

American politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ119255 ↗
Source-derived summary

August William Ritter Jr. (born September 6, 1956) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 41st governor of Colorado from 2007 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the district attorney for Denver before his election to the governorship in 2006.

Ritter was the first Colorado-born person to be elected as governor of Colorado since 1975, as well as being the first Democratic officeholder in 50 years to serve with a Democratic majority in the Colorado General Assembly. Ritter did not run for a second term in 2010, citing family reasons. He supported fellow Democrat John Hickenlooper, who was elected to the governorship.

Early life

Ritter was raised on a farm in Aurora, Colorado, with 11 brothers and sisters; he was sixth-oldest. His parents were Ethel and August William Ritter. He attended Gateway High School while he lived in Aurora. He also attended St.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bill Ritter” as american politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1956, 2007, 2011, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1956-09-06. The account is most persuasive where Bill, Ritter and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q119255. VIAF identifies the subject as 66270184. The Library of Congress control number is no2008019139. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 2007, 2011 and 2006.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bill Ritter”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bill Ritter primary sources, Bill Ritter archive and Bill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bill Ritter”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bill Ritter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.