Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) did something very unusual last week. When Polis granted Tina Peters’s clemency petition, allowing her to leave prison years ahead of her scheduled release date, there was no political or personal benefit to the governor.
As a Democratic governor in what has become a solidly blue state, Polis’s main constituency consists of members of his own party. Yet he enraged those very same people when he paved the way for the early release of Peters, a figure villainized on the Left for reasons that go far beyond her role in a data breach following the 2020 election.
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Polis displayed true courage, and if we as Americans want to see more courageous, principled actions by politicians, we should be unequivocal in our praise.
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Peters was convicted for actions she took as the Mesa County Clerk in Colorado in 2021, specifically allowing an unauthorized person access to her office’s voting equipment based on her concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election. As a result of this data breach, a judge sentenced Peters, a nonviolent, first-time offender who is now 70, to nine years in prison.
Even Colorado’s Court of Appeals found this sentence troubling, vacating it based on the sentencing judge’s improper consideration of Peters’ political viewpoints and beliefs about the 2020 election. Last week, Polis commuted Peters’ sentence to four-and-a-half years, citing the disproportionate length of the punishment, the Court of Appeals’ ruling regarding the impropriety of her sentence, and Peters’s acknowledgment in her clemency application that she had made mistakes. Peters will now be free on June 1.
Polis, a relatively popular governor whose tenure has been free of scandal, faced immense blowback for granting clemency to Peters. Democratic election lawyer and operative Marc Elias posted on X, “Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful.” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (who helped lead the unsuccessful effort to remove President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot) issued a press release calling the clemency grant “an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado, and election officials across the country,” stating that Polis’s decision will “leave a dark, dangerous imprint on American democracy for years to come.” Colorado’s two Democratic senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both condemned the decision, with Hickenlooper calling Peters “guilty as sin and a disgrace to Colorado.” Most strikingly, the Colorado Democratic Party State Central Committee took the extraordinary step of formally censuring its own sitting governor, barring Polis from serving as a speaker or honored guest at party events, with over 90% of delegates voting in favor of the censure.
Letting Tina Peters spend her 70s in prison would have cost Polis nothing, at least politically. Had Polis done nothing, the same party functionaries and elected officials now condemning him would have continued to sing his praises. By commuting Peters’ sentence, Polis did something increasingly rare in U.S. politics: he applied his principles consistently, even when doing so benefited someone he almost certainly disagrees with deeply. Here, that principle was a particularly important one: upholding the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Polis could not turn a blind eye to the appellate court’s finding that a court imposed a harsher sentence not because of Peters’ criminal acts, but because of her unpopular beliefs about the 2020 election. Polis thus made clear that he would not support citizens of his state facing prison time for their political beliefs.
Today, most politicians view current events not through the lens of what is good for the country, but rather, what is bad for the other party.
If more politicians were willing to defend the rights of their opponents with the same ferocity they defend the rights of their friends, the extreme polarization that characterizes U.S. politics might abate. Most politicians, however, do not have the luxury of enraging their base simply to protect someone with nothing to offer them politically, as Polis did when he granted clemency to Peters.
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Just as Polis’s decision enraged his base, it delighted those in the Republican camp (such as myself). But there is a third group that is often left out of the conversation: people who aren’t wedded to one party or the other and simply want things to get better. For the kind of leadership Polis displayed to become anything more than an anomaly, it needs to be recognized and praised when it appears.
Perhaps this third group of voters will reward other politicians who follow suit. Polis will likely pay a political price for what he did. The least the rest of us can do is make sure he knows it was noticed.
Jesse D. Franklin-Murdock is the Miles Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Liberty. He is also a partner at Sweigart Murdock, LLP, in San Francisco, where his litigation practice focuses on First Amendment and defamation law, civil rights, and political law.
