Colorado Governor Censured for Commuting Sentence of Election Denier

DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, was censured by his own party on Wednesday night over his decision to free Tina Peters, a high-profile election denier and supporter of President Donald Trump who had been serving a nine-year prison sentence for tampering with voting machines.

The censure by the Colorado State Democratic Party came after more than 700 infuriated Democrats signed onto a grassroots effort to rebuke Polis for commuting Peters’ prison sentence last week. The censure measure, voted on during a state party central committee meeting on Wednesday night, passed with 89.8% support.

Peters had been perhaps the highest-profile election denier still in prison — in her case, for actions related to a failed effort to prove that voting machines under her control had been used to rig the 2020 election.

Dozens of Democratic leaders in Colorado — and some Republicans — spent months beseeching Polis in public and private to reject Peters’ application for clemency. They argued that despite her age, 70, and status as a first-time felon, Peters posed a threat to elections and democracy and was unrepentant.

Polis, however, said he believed Peters had been given an unfairly harsh sentence because of her embrace of election conspiracy theories, not the severity of her crime.

Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Polis, responded to the censure by saying in a statement that “sometimes the right thing isn’t the popular thing with everybody.”

“Democracy is strongest when disagreement is met with debate and dialogue, not censorship,” he added.

The commutation Polis issued last Friday clears the way for Peters to be freed from a state prison in Pueblo, Colorado, on June 1, after serving fewer than two years.

Democrats have been fuming ever since, searching for some way to punish the lame-duck governor, who has at times rankled Democrats by vetoing their bills, endorsing vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and fighting in court to cooperate with federal immigration subpoenas.

“The man is wildly out of touch with the party he effectively leads,” Ian Coggins, 33, a political consultant and local Democratic captain who started the censure effort, said in an interview.

On Wednesday night, more than 250 party activists and state and local officials joined a Zoom meeting where many slammed the governor for what they called “conduct detrimental” to their party.

Supporters of the censure demanded a formal investigation into the governor’s action, and wondered whether the commutation would affect Denver’s bid to host the Democratic National Convention in 2028.

“We cannot as a party or state allow this commutation to go unheeded,” Andrew Brandt, one of the Democrats on the Zoom meeting, said.

But a few argued that censure was unnecessary, and that Democrats in Colorado should focus on the midterm elections. In November, voters will decide who will succeed Polis as governor, a seat that political analysts expect Democrats to hold. In more challenging races, Democrats are also trying to flip two Republican-held congressional seats.

“The governor made a brave decision, unpopular as it is,” said Ann la Plante, a criminal defense lawyer in Greeley, Colorado.

Polis is hardly the first politician to be censured by his own party’s loyalists.

Republicans in Arizona censured then-Sen. John McCain in 2014 over his voting record, and seven years later, censured his wife, Cindy, as well as a former Republican senator who supported Joe Biden over Trump in the 2020 election. In 2022, Arizona Democrats censured Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for opposing efforts to get rid of the filibuster.

Like those earlier censures, the Colorado Democratic Party’s action on Wednesday is largely symbolic. It does bar Polis from speaking at Democratic Party events, such as the upcoming DemFest in Denver, a showcase for candidates.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jack Healy/Michael Ciagio
c. 2026 The New York Times Company

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