Politics
Colorado Democratic Party censures Jared Polis over Tina Peters clemency
Colorado Democrats censured Gov. Jared Polis late Wednesday for his decision to grant clemency to Tina Peters, a former county clerk who is serving a prison sentence after being convicted of allowing unauthorized access to voting machines in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
The two-term governor’s decision, which he made last week, “materially harmed the Colorado Democratic Party’s institutional credibility and efforts to defend democratic institutions and election integrity,” the party said in a statement.
“Colorado has spent years building trust in our elections and proving they are secure,” the party said. “At a time when democracy and voting rights are under attack across the nation, weakening accountability for someone convicted of undermining that trust is a mistake.”
Peters was sentenced to roughly nine years in prison in 2024 after being convicted of state charges of assisting in the breach of state election equipment. Peters allowed a man affiliated with Mike Lindell, a conspiracy theorist aligned with President Donald Trump, to access Mesa County election systems.
The state was forced to spend nearly one million dollars to replace it all, Secretary of State Jena Griswold said.
In the years since, her case has become a rallying cry for Republicans who continue to falsely insist that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Trump himself has championed Peters’ cause.
“The Governor made this decision based on the facts of the case and what he believed was the right thing to do,” Eric Maruyama, Polis’ press secretary, said in a statement. “Sometimes the right thing isn’t the popular thing with everybody. Democracy is strongest when disagreement is met with debate and dialogue, not censorship.”
Polis shortened Peters’ sentence from nine years to 4.5, and she is eligible for parole soon. The governor, who has been careful to insist that his move to halve Peters’ prison term did not constitute a pardon, told BLN last week that the 2024 sentence was draconian and connected to Peters’ political beliefs.
“There should be no consideration of what we say — how unpopular it is, how inaccurate it is — in sentencing or in criminal proceedings,” he said.
But Democrats, including Polis’ potential successor in Colorado, were harshly critical of his decision.
Sen. Michael Bennet, who is running for the state’s governor post in November, told BLN this week that Polis’ “terrible” Peters decision would disqualify him from being considered for the open Senate seat should Bennet win.
“She is a stone-cold election denier,” Bennet said. “She’s never said anything other than that.”
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Even the Republican county attorney in Arizona’s most populous locality is sounding the alarm on potential election meddling by MAGA world.
That’s the crux of a court filing submitted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell this week. For those unaware, Mitchell garnered national attention after Senate Republicans tapped her to question Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process after Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh has flatly denied the allegation.
Two years later, Mitchell successfully ran for Maricopa County attorney, and she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024 — in other words, she is not an opponent of the MAGA movement. So it’s noteworthy that she and her legal team are accusing America First Legal, the right-wing activist group founded by White House adviser Stephen Miller, of effectively taking control of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which helps administer elections.
The office is led by Justin Heap, who has egged on the Trump administration’s push to acquire sensitive voter data in Arizona. And the disturbing context to all this is Trump has openly declared that Republicans should nationalize voting processes and “take over the voting” in several cities — like Phoenix, perhaps.
According to The Arizona Republic:
In a June 8 legal filing, Mitchell’s lawyers asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney to rein in Recorder Justin Heap’s politically connected firm, the America First Legal Foundation, which it said has undertaken “an unprecedented power grab.”
“The Recorder lacks any explicit or implicit statutory authority to hire outside counsel — let alone a partisan organization — to serve as in-house counsel on ‘all’ matters under his ‘purview,’” Mitchell’s lawyers wrote.
America First Legal is advising Heap’s office as he battles the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to claim official powers for himself. As Democracy Docket reportedthe dispute at one point allegedly involved Heap seizing election equipment and provisional ballot envelopes while votes were being cast in a local election in March, causing county supervisors to warn about “grave chain-of-custody concerns.”
The Arizona Republic said Mitchell listed several examples of America First Legal wielding unauthorized power in Heap’s office amid the dispute with the board:
Mitchell’s request, handled by the law firm of Snell and Wilmer, identified six examples of what she contends involves America First Legal going beyond Blaney’s intended role for them: litigating the power-sharing agreement with the board.
Now, Mitchell argues, America First Legal has claimed authority over all matters relating to early voting, told election officials to disregard directives from or seek advice from Mitchell’s office, threatened prosecution over drop boxes and sent a warning letter signaling new litigation against the board.
Let’s not downplay the crisis playing out here. The GOP-controlled Board of Supervisors and the Republican county attorney overseeing the largest county in Arizona, where the majority of the state’s voters live, are calling out the pro-MAGA county recorder, who stands accused of allowing a right-wing activist group, founded by a White House official, to have unchecked power over electoral processes. (Heap’s office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.)
The fact that even conservative officials are sounding the alarm here shows how extreme, unprecedented and potentially threatening to democracy this situation could prove to be.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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