Tina Peters is being released tomorrow

Here's why I reduced her sentence

One of the best parts of public service has never been the speeches, the votes, or the headlines.

It’s the deep conversations.

When I first ran for governor, I held more than 200 house parties across Colorado. Around kitchen tables and in living rooms, people told me about their jobs and businesses, their kids, their fears, and their hopes. Some agreed with me. Many didn’t. But I always left those conversations smarter than when I arrived. I remember one house party in Pueblo where a voter spent nearly twenty minutes explaining why he disagreed with me on almost everything. We ended up talking about Lake Pueblo for another twenty minutes. I don’t remember who won the argument, but I remember leaving with a better understanding of why he believed what he believed and much deeper knowledge of Lake Pueblo.

Sadly, those conversations have become harder to have. Too much of our public life now happens through soundbites, social media posts, and television segments designed to generate outrage rather than understanding. We spend more time talking past one another than talking with one another.

That’s one reason I’m starting this Substack.

I want a place where I can explain not just what I think, but why I think it. A place for complex, nuanced positions, longer conversations about Colorado, our country, public policy, leadership, and the ideas that shape my decisions.

Which brings me to Tina Peters. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that’s why you’re here as I write this on the eve of her release.

Earlier this month, I granted clemency to Tina Peters, reducing her sentence from 8¾ years to 4⅜ years, with a corresponding parole date of June 1, 2026. The reaction, positive and negative, was immediate and intense.

The legal question regarding her unusually long sentence was straightforward, the public reaction was not.

Not because Tina Peters is innocent. She isn’t.

Not because I agree with her claims about elections. I don’t.

And certainly not because I ever considered pardoning her. I never did.

It was a straightforward decision because, after reviewing the facts, and reading the Appeals Court decision, I concluded that her sentence was simply too long.

Let me start with what happened.

As Mesa County Clerk, Peters abused a position of public trust by deceiving state officials and facilitating unauthorized access to election equipment prior to a routine software update process after the completion of a municipal election in 2021. Her actions violated state law, exposed sensitive system information, and forced taxpayers to bear significant costs to replace equipment and restore security safeguards.

Those were serious offenses. Public trust is the foundation of election administration, and when an elected official entrusted with safeguarding that system violates the law, there must be consequences.

Justice requires precision. People must be judged and sentenced for the crimes they committed—not for the public reaction to those crimes, not for the political movements associated with them, and not for the beliefs they express.

Tina Peters committed real crimes. She violated the public trust. She broke the law. Her actions imposed real costs on Mesa County. She deserved to be convicted. She deserved to serve time in prison. She remains a convicted felon beyond today, the last day she’s behind bars. Going forward, she’ll have to abide by strict conditions of parole.

Those actions were illegal. They were reckless. They warranted criminal prosecution and meaningful punishment

None of that was ever in question.

What I could not ignore was that the sentence itself had become disconnected from the crime.

First, Peters was a first-time, non-violent offender. Second, last month a unanimous three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed her convictions while rejecting President Trump’s claim that he could pardon her for state crimes. At the same time, the court ordered that she be resentenced because the original sentence improperly considered her constitutionally protected speech and beliefs.

The court articulated the issue better than I could:

“Her offense was not her belief… however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud… it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud. ... Just as her purported beliefs underlying her motive for her actions were not relevant to her defense, the trial court should not have considered those beliefs relevant when imposing sentence.”

I believe the court got it exactly right.

Tina Peters should be punished for what she did. She should not receive additional punishment for what she believed or said.

The constitutional concern here extends beyond Tina Peters. One of the foundational promises of our legal system is equal justice under the law. The same rules must apply regardless of whether someone is popular or unpopular, powerful or powerless, Republican or Democrat.

If a court imposed a longer sentence on a progressive activist because of constitutionally protected political speech, I would object just as strongly. Constitutional principles are not tested when they protect people we agree with. They are tested when they protect people we don’t.

That distinction matters.

A lot.

The easiest constitutional rights to defend are the ones exercised by people we agree with. Nobody gets tested when the speaker shares our values. The test comes when the speaker is someone we dislike, distrust, or even despise. If courts can impose harsher punishment because they dislike a defendant’s political beliefs or protected speech, then we have created a precedent that can eventually be used against anyone.

American history is full of examples.

Courts have protected the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois. They protected flag burning as political expression. They protected the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to engage in hateful and offensive protests.

Every one of those examples makes me uncomfortable. I hope they make you uncomfortable too.

As a gay Jewish American, some of them feel deeply personal. I personally despise the thought of Nazis marching down the streets of Skokie, or of Denver. But, and this is deeply uncomfortable, I believe they have the right to do so, as long as those demonstrations are peaceful. Because to have a truly liberal democracy requires that right.

The First Amendment was never designed to protect comfortable speech which hardly needs it. It was designed to protect unpopular speech. Rights are only rights if they apply equally to people we disagree with.

As a kid, I first volunteered on Josie Heath’s campaign for United States Senate in 1990. I interned for Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. I have attended every Democratic National Convention since 1992. I have marched with my LGBTQ peers for causes of liberty and equality. I have spent decades fighting for Democratic values and causes that I believe have made Colorado and our country stronger.

Which is precisely why I believe those values must be applied consistently.

Over the last several weeks, I have often found myself thinking about my friend, the late Pat Schroeder.

Pat had a gift for cutting through political noise. People would spend hours debating tactics, messaging, political consequences, and public reaction. But Pat would challenge us to think first of what the right thing to do was.

One of the lonelier parts of being governor is that eventually those decisions belong to you. And you have to use your own judgement to make those weighty decisions.

Not your staff.

Not your supporters.

Not your critics.

You.

And no decision is harder than exercising the power of clemency, because in those instances, you are making a decision that is constitutionally authorized but inherently overrides a separate branch of government’s decision making.

People sometimes assume clemency decisions are political. In reality, they are among the most personal responsibilities a governor has. Every application represents a human being, a set of facts, and a question of justice.

The hardest clemency decision I ever made wasn’t Tina Peters. It was commuting the sentences of Colorado’s remaining death row inmates to life without parole after I signed legislation abolishing the death penalty. One conversation in particular has stayed with me. I sat across from a mother whose son had been murdered and listened as she shared her grief, her memories, and her belief that the person responsible should remain on death row.

And then I had to tell her that I was going to commute his sentence.

Not because I doubted the seriousness of the crime. Not because I had any sympathy at all for the murderer. But because I had come to believe that, no matter how horrific the offense, it is wrong for the government to take a human life as punishment.

That conversation was heartbreaking. It also reinforced something I have learned over and over again as governor: the right decision is not always the popular decision, and it is almost never the easy one.

Over my time as governor, I have granted clemency to individuals from every background and every political persuasion. The question is never whether I agree with someone personally. The question is whether justice has been served and whether the punishment fits the crime.

In the case of Tina Peters, I concluded it did not.

Some have asked why I did not simply allow the courts to continue the process. The answer is simple. Any path through the courts would likely have taken years of appeals. I wanted to provide finality to this case, and as Governor I used my constitutional power of clemency to do what I believe is right, just as I did in the case of trucker Rogel Aguilera-Mederos who was guilty of and convicted on multiple charges, including vehicular homicide and was originally sentenced to 110 years which I reduced to ten years, a more typical sentence for his horrible crimes. As governor, I have a constitutional power to address precisely these situations. I have used that power dozens of times to provide a remedy that addresses disparate sentencing and better reflects the seriousness of the crime while remaining proportional to the offense.

It’s fair that people disagree with these decisions. But the power of clemency exists for a reason. And it’s one I’ve exercised consistently throughout my Governorship, because I do believe there are instances where I can make a difference for justice.

Tomorrow, Tina Peters will be released from prison.

She may continue making claims about elections that I believe are false. She may continue promoting ideas that I strongly disagree with. I hope she doesn’t. But in America, people are not sent to prison for expressing political views, however misguided those views may be.

If Peters violates the law again, she should be held accountable for her actions just like anyone else. The punishment should fit the offense—no more and no less. That principle should not change based on whether we agree with someone’s politics, speech, or beliefs.

The truth is Colorado’s election system remains a model for the nation because of the dedicated public servants who administer it. Election workers across our state deserve gratitude, not threats. Every eligible voter deserves confidence that their vote is counted accurately. Free and fair elections remain one of the foundations of our democracy.

Election workers across our state deserve gratitude, not threats. Every eligible voter deserves confidence that their vote is counted accurately. Free and fair elections remain one of the foundations of our democracy, and we welcome good ideas to make it even better and more secure.

Nothing about this clemency decision changes any of that.

America turns 250 this year.

Colorado turns 150.

Neither milestone is guaranteed to mean anything.

Democracies do not survive because they are old. They survive because generation after generation choose principles over convenience, and continue to reaffirm through practice the protections and values of liberal democracy.

The temptation throughout history has always been the same: bend the rules when the target deserves it. Ignore due process when the outcome feels justified. Make an exception because this particular case feels different.

But every erosion of principle begins with an exception.

I understand why some people disagree with my decision. Some probably always will.

That’s okay.

I am not asking anyone to agree with me.

I am simply sharing the reasoning behind a decision that I believed was right.

In public life, all any of us can do is examine the facts, follow our principles, and accept responsibility for the choices we make.

That’s what I did here.

And if this new space is going to be worth anything, that’s what I’ll try to do in the conversations ahead. Stay Tune for Next Substack:

Tune into my next post where I will reflect on the reaction I have seen from this decision and what I have learned.