Jared Polis Wants To Leave You Alone

The Democratic Colorado governor on pandemics, parenting, and partisanship

- NICK GILLESPIE

LAST DECEMBER, COLORADO Gov. Jared Polis was one of the few Democratic governors willing to talk sensibly about pandemic policy after more than 18 months of blue-state lockdowns, mask mandates, school closures, and business capacity restrictions.

"Public health [officials] don't get to tell people what to wear; that's just not their job," Polis told a Colorado public radio station, declaring that the "medical emergency" phase of the pandemic had passed. Even when the omicron variant spiked this winter, Polis refused to reinstate mandates. His message was clear: Coloradans had had the opportunity to get vaccinated. They could decide their own risk tolerance.

The 46-year-old governor and former five-term congressman is presiding over one of the fastest-growing states in the country, a place that has one of the lowest death rates during the pandemic. Last fall, at a conference held by the conservative Steamboat Institute, he declared that the state income tax rate "should be zero" and he has supported ballot initiatives to reduce the rate. The gay father of two recently signed a free-range parenting bill that effectively re-legalizes the sort of Colorado childhood he recalls as the son of two ex-hippie parents. He has pushed occupational licensing reform and, as conservative states pass laws strictly limiting abortion, he signed legislation guaranteeing a woman's right to choose. The founder of two charter schools, he is an outspoken advocate of school choice.

A serial tech entrepreneur who amassed a fortune estimated by ProPublica to be "in the hundreds of millions," Polis was an early champion of bitcoin and is steadfast against limiting speech rights or treating social media platforms as utilities that can't moderate the content or bounce users for transgressing terms of service.