Jared Polis could define the future of the Democratic Party. That’s a bad thing.
It’s no surprise, then, that Polis’s economic positions often align more closely with Republicans than with his own party. Early in his gubernatorial term, he endorsed a GOP-backed plan to cut state income taxes, though it was ultimately rejected by the Democrat-controlled legislature. Polis has resisted granting state employees collective-bargaining rights and has vetoed legislation meant to restrict union-busting practices. The result is an incipient rift with organized labor: Polis’s relationship with the state’s AFL-CIO can be uniquely tense at times. The same goes for his rapport with his party. On two separate occasions, prominent figures in the state’s Democratic Party—including its chairman—have participated as speakers in what amounted to anti-Polis labor rallies. As governor, Polis has overseen four rounds of property tax reductions, leaving Colorado with the nation’s forty-eighth-lowest property tax rate. His ambitions go even further—Polis has explicitly called for the abolition of the income tax altogether. “It penalizes success,” Polis explained to the libertarian podcaster and editor Nick Gillespie. “Income is something that’s good.”
