Polis fires two members of Colorado clemency board after they publicly opposed commutation for Tina Peters

Colorado Governor Jared Polis has fired two members of the state’s Executive Clemency Advisory Board after they publicly opposed the governor’s commutation of the sentence of Tina Peters, according to multiple reports citing people familiar with the matter. The move comes after Polis, a Democrat, reduced Peters’ nearly nine-year prison term, a decision that drew criticism from prominent Colorado Democrats and election officials. The Hill reported that Polis dismissed board members Azra Taslimi and Hannah Seigel Proff after they publicly argued against Polis’s decision. CNN and the Colorado Sun similarly reported the firings and said the two officials had made public disclosures about the board’s votes on Peters’ clemency requests. The Colorado Sun reported that Polis’s office said the board members violated an executive order requiring confidentiality for the clemency process. According to that report, the advisory board’s recommendations are intended to remain secret while it evaluates pardon and sentence commutation requests submitted to the governor. The Sun also reported that the board members disclosed that the panel had twice rejected Peters’ request, a point described as central to the governor’s explanation for the dismissal. Multiple outlets described the clemency board as a governor-appointed panel that operates in secret and provides confidential recommendations on requests for pardons and commutations. In this case, the advisory board members who were fired had publicly opposed freeing Peters, which Polis had decided to do despite objections from within his political coalition. The Hill report said Peters was the first local elections official convicted over efforts tied to the 2020 presidential election. Peters was convicted in 2024 for a plot involving tampering with voting machines, which prosecutors and courts treated as an attempt to undermine public trust in the election. PBS and other prior reporting on the case described the commutation as a major break from what critics in Colorado and beyond viewed as a pattern of election-integrity accountability. The commutation decision, announced by Polis earlier in 2026, triggered national and state-level backlash, including renewed debate over how governors use clemency and what safeguards should govern advisory processes. Colorado Democratic leaders moved to respond to the commutation, CPR reported in May, describing an unprecedented effort to censure Polis and sidelining him from some party events ahead of elections. While those political actions differed from the clemency board dispute, they formed part of the broader context for the governor’s handling of the Peters case. The practical effect of Polis’s firings is to reshape who will handle future clemency-related recommendations for the governor. The reports also highlight a recurring tension in clemency administration: while advisory board members may believe public disclosure is necessary to protect election administration and due process, confidentiality rules are designed to insulate the process from political pressure and to preserve the governor’s deliberative setting. The next steps depend on whether Polis fills the vacated seats and how the confidentiality requirements are enforced for advisory members going forward.

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