Rob Natelson: The “Progressive” Democrat Who Pretends He’s a Libertarian

I’ve seen it before: A state governor wants to get national notice, so he starts a nationwide public relations campaign. If he is a liberal, his performance usually isn’t much to brag about, since “progressive” policies have a way of gumming things up. So the campaign re-packages the governor as something he isn’t.

Now Colorado’s first-term liberal Democrat governor, Jared Polis, is playing that game. His national rebranding is as a “libertarian.”

Some conservative and libertarian national editors and columnists have fallen for it. If they had researched the record, they would have learned that, as one of my Independence Institute colleagues concluded in a recent study, “More government control over people’s lives has been the dominant theme of Polis’s administration.”

Colorado’s Decline 

In 2010, I returned to Colorado after 24 years in Montana. Colorado used to be a great place to live—partly because of the physical environment, but also because it was one of America’s most liberty-minded states.

In recent years, though, the state has been on a downward slide. Since Polis was elected governor in 2018, the rate of descent has accelerated.

Every time I drive to my office in central Denver, I see this once-beautiful city afflicted with vandalism, beggars, homeless encampments, and drugs. Colorado now leads the nation in automobile thefts, and statewide statistics show a spike in violent crime as well (pdf: 2022 statistics are only partial). 

As one who regularly travels by automobile throughout the West, I can testify that Colorado’s neglected roads are the worst in the region.

State COVID-19 Lockdowns

Some writers give Polis credit for imposing COVID-19 mandates that were less harsh than those imposed by other Democrat governors. In fact, Polis’s lockdown orders were atrocious. In an April 30, 2020 op-ed, I summarized the situation:

“Over the last 50 days Coloradans have been pelted with 42 new or amended state Coronavirus executive orders. . . . [T]hey cumulatively regulate almost every aspect of your life. If you violate one, you face a fine of up to $1000 and jail time up to a year. Multiple violations could mean multiple penalties. . . . If a state decree permits what a county decree prohibits, the county one controls. If the county order permits what a state order prohibits, then the state order controls. You must follow whichever rule most restricts your freedom.”

These orders were poorly drafted and often nonsensical. One limited “social interactions” in a way that seemed to ban even Zoom calls and in-person conversations with your spouse.

Moreover, Polis’s orders, like those of some other governors, discriminated among businesses in transparently political ways: Marijuana stores, mostly owned by lefties, were allowed to stay open, while more conservative businesses were forced to close.

Some of the orders were flatly unconstitutional. For example, one purported to ban out-of-staters from traveling through Colorado unless they were returning home. Another tried to block Coloradans and out-of-staters from transporting most goods across the state.

According to one study, Polis’s lockdowns destroyed 43 percent of all Colorado small businesses. Aside from the economic damage, the cost