Polis fires clemency board critics after Tina Peters backlash

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis removed two members of the state clemency board after they publicly criticized his decision to commute Tina Peters’ sentence, deepening a fight over who controls politically sensitive mercy decisions and whether board members can speak freely about them.

The fired members were Hannah Seigel Proff and Azra Taslimi, both Denver lawyers. Polis acted after they disclosed that the 11-member board had unanimously recommended denial of Peters’ clemency request twice, including an initial vote in January 2026 and a second vote after an unusual request from the governor’s office. The board operates in near-total secrecy, and its members are appointed by the governor, making the removals a sharp test of whether independence survives when advice runs against executive wishes.

Peters’ case became the flashpoint because it sits at the center of Colorado’s election-denial politics. A Mesa County jury convicted the former county clerk on four felony counts and three misdemeanors tied to the 2021 breach of her county’s election equipment, and the Colorado Secretary of State has said her actions cost Mesa County nearly $1 million in replacement equipment. Colorado officials said her convictions were upheld by the Colorado Court of Appeals on April 2, 2026, before Polis acted.

Polis commuted Peters’ nine-year sentence on May 15, 2026, making her eligible for release on June 1. She was released that day from La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo. Secretary of State Jena Griswold called the clemency decision an affront to democracy and warned it could embolden the election-denial movement, while also saying Peters continued spreading election falsehoods after her release.

The firings also raised the stakes around transparency inside a system built to be hidden from public view. The Denver Post said Polis removed Proff and Taslimi because they breached the required duty of confidentiality by publicly divulging board members’ votes. That rationale puts the governor’s authority in direct tension with the board’s role as a confidential check on mercy decisions, especially in cases that draw pressure from figures such as President Donald Trump, who pushed for Peters’ release.

For Colorado, the dispute has become less about one commutation than about precedent: whether a governor can punish dissenters on a clemency board after they reveal a unanimous recommendation that the governor later chose to ignore.