May 20, 2026 10:22 AM UTC

Jared Polis Forgets the First Rule of Holes

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Governor Jared Polis continues to face backlash over his perplexing decision, announced on Friday, to commute the sentence of former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters. Polis is responding to that backlash by digging himself a deeper hole.

First, as Seth Klamann and Nick Coltrain report for The Denver Post:

Hundreds of Democratic elected officials, volunteers and voters have asked the state party to formally censure Polis, alleging that his commutation decision is “incompatible” with the party’s values. The complaint, which was released Monday, asks party officials to condemn Polis’ decision to have Peters released on June 1 and find that it amounts to “conduct detrimental to the interests of the Colorado Democratic Party.”

Besides a censure, the complaint asks that the party limit Polis’ appearances at state party events like early June’s DemFest, including not allowing him to speak at or attend them…

…The potential rebuke is the latest in a wave of scathing criticism from Democrats against Polis after he announced that he was reducing Peters’ original sentence of nearly nine years by roughly half for convictions related to an election data-breach scheme. The former Mesa County clerk and ally of President Donald Trump will end up serving about 20 months in jail and prison, with her release now coming roughly 30 months earlier than her prior parole eligibility date.

Barring Polis from speaking at Democratic Party events is kinda silly, since the term-limited Governor isn’t likely to be actively seeking an audience with Democratic groups anytime soon. But this proposal highlights the fact that Polis would be wise to stop talking for awhile anyway.

Governor Polis has forgotten something that we’ve long discussed in this space: The first rule of holes is to stop digging.

As Brian Eason and Jesse Paul report for The Colorado Sun:

Polis on Tuesday said he doesn’t regret his decision to commute the prison sentence of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, despite widespread condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans, who said it will embolden election conspiracy theorists ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“I think this will be remembered fondly,” Polis said at The Colorado Sun’s annual legislative recap event at the University of Denver. [Pols emphasis] “The nation needs to have a reconciliation and healing.

“People know I’m a man of action,” he added. “I’m a bold person, I’m going to do things that I think are right, and that’s why people put me here. They want me to do things that I think are right.”

This is a very Trumpian response from Polis. He’s right and everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. If Polis isn’t going to acknowledge that he made a mistake with Peters, the smart move would be to stop digging his own hole by acting like everything is fantastic.

But Polis just keeps digging:

“What you’re not focusing on here are the millions of Coloradans who felt that a particular Coloradan was punished for her beliefs, and in a Colorado for all, that’s simply not the kind of Colorado we believe in,” Polis said. “Nobody should be punished for their beliefs, you should be punished for crimes.”

Peters was not punished for “believing” that the 2020 election was stolen. She was convicted by a jury of her peers and prosecuted by a Republican district attorney FOR BREAKING THE LAW. In a misguided attempt to prove some sort of 2020 election fraud, Peters busted into her own voting machines while serving as Mesa County Clerk and Recorder. The county later had to spend more than a million dollars replacing its voting equipment because of Peters’ security breach.

Peters wasn’t in jail for what she said, but for what she did.

The idea that “millions of Coloradans” believed that Peters was unjustly punished is also an absolute crock of shit; even if that were true, it is in no way a defense that Polis should be using. Polis later criticized President Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund — Vice President JD Vance said that Peters probably qualifies for a payout — by saying, “That whole thing is completely bogus.” Yet doesn’t Polis’s earlier defense work just as well here? Millions of people voted for Trump because they know he’s a man of action and they want him to do what he thinks is right!

Jared Polis will dig his way to China before he convinces people that commuting Peters’ sentence was a smart move. Nothing Polis can say will make this any better; the smart move is to stop trying.