Jared Polis

Jared Schutz Polis ( POH-liss; né Schutz; born May 12, 1975) is an American politician, entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist serving since 2019 as the 43rd governor of Colorado. From 2009 to 2019, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Colorado's 2nd congressional district. From 2001 to 2007 he served on the Colorado State Board of Education. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

First elected to Congress in 2008, Polis is the first openly gay man elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. He was the third-wealthiest member of the United States Congress, with an estimated net worth of $122.6 million, and the only Democratic member of the Liberty Caucus. In 2011, he became the first openly gay parent in Congress.

In 2018, Polis was elected governor of Colorado. He is the first openly gay man elected governor of a U.S. state, the first Jewish governor of Colorado, and the first governor in a same-sex marriage. He was reelected in 2022.

Polis is the son of Stephen Schutz and Susan Polis Schutz, founders of greeting card and book publisher Blue Mountain Arts. He was born at Boulder Community Hospital in Boulder, Colorado, in 1975. He lived in San Diego, California, as a high school student and graduated from La Jolla Country Day School in three years with multiple honors. He graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in politics in 1996, writing a 157-page senior thesis, "Paradigm Shift: Politics in the Information Age", under the supervision of Carol M. Swain. While at Princeton, Polis served as communications director of the undergraduate student government and was involved in other campus organizations, such as Model Congress, Phi Gamma Delta, and the Princeton Juggling Club. As a college sophomore, Polis purchased stamps from a Legends of the West series at the Princeton post office. The USPS had recently recalled the series due to a printing error in the image of Bill Pickett, making his stamps far more valuable. Polis sold the stamps to a collector for a sum "exceeding $1,000". In 2000, he legally changed his surname to his mother's to raise awareness for a fundraiser and because he simply "liked it better".

Polis co-founded American Information Systems (AIS), Inc., while still in college. AIS was an internet access provider and was sold in 1998. In 1996, he co-founded a free electronic greeting card website, bluemountain.com, which was sold to Excite@Home in 1999 for $430 million in stock and $350 million in cash. In February 1998, Polis founded ProFlowers, an online florist, in La Jolla, California. In December of that year, economist Arthur Laffer began advising Polis and joined ProFlowers as a director. ProFlowers, later renamed Provide Commerce, Inc., went public on NASDAQ as PRVD on December 17, 2003. In 2005, media conglomerate Liberty Media Corporation acquired Provide Commerce for $477 million. Polis and other investors founded Techstars in Boulder, Colorado, in 2006. It developed into a global venture capital firm. During his tenure in Congress, Polis was among its wealthiest members, with his net worth estimated at more than $300 million.

Polis has been called one of the "Gang of Four"—four wealthy Coloradans who made a concerted effort to support Democrats in statewide legislative races. The other members are Pat Stryker, Rutt Bridges, and Tim Gill. The Gang of Four's influence has been cited as a factor in Colorado's shift toward the Democratic Party in the 2000s and 2010s.

In 2000, Polis was elected at-large as a member of the Colorado State Board of Education and served a single six-year term until January 2007, when the district was eliminated. His election was one of the closest in Colorado history, as he defeated incumbent Ben Alexander by 90 votes out of 1.6 million cast. During his term, Polis served as both chairman and vice chairman of the board.

In 2006, Polis served as co-chair of Coloradans for Clean Government, a committee that supported Amendment 41, a citizen-initiated ballot measure to ban gifts by registered lobbyists to government officials, establish a $50 annual restriction on gift-giving from non-lobbyists, establish a two-year cooling-off period before former state legislators and statewide elected officials can begin lobbying, and create an independent ethics commission. In November 2006, 62.3% of Colorado voters approved the "Ethics in Government" constitutional amendment.

In 2014, Polis planned to champion two ballot measures to limit fracking in Colorado by banning drilling near schools and homes and empowering communities to pass their own rules. The measures were dropped after he reached a deal with Governor John Hickenlooper to create a task force. The absence of the initiatives was seen as a relief to vulnerable Democrats who would have had to take controversial stances on the issue.

In 2008, Polis won a heavily contested Democratic primary election for Colorado's 2nd congressional district, and went on to win the general election on November 4 with 63% of the vote. He succeeded Mark Udall, who was elected to the United States Senate that year. Polis was reelected to the House in 2010 with 57% of the vote, in 2012 with 56% of the vote, in 2014 with 57% of the vote, and in 2016 with 57% of the vote.

Polis was the Red to Blue program chair for the DCCC during the 2012 elections, helping recruit and raise money for Democratic candidates in competitive congressional districts. After the elections, he considered running for vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus after then-Chair Xavier Becerra was term-limited. The position went to Representative Joe Crowley.

The following is an incomplete list of legislation Polis introduced:

The Affordable College Textbook Act had been introduced in the 113th and 114th Congresses. Reintroduced by Polis in the 115th Congress, it again died in committee.

In the 114th Congress, Polis served on the following committees:

In 2018, Polis announced his candidacy for governor of Colorado. He was elected governor with 53.4% of the vote, defeating Republican nominee Walker Stapleton and becoming the first openly gay person elected governor of any state; the first openly gay person to serve as a state governor was Jim McGreevey, the 52nd governor of New Jersey, who disclosed his sexual orientation during his gubernatorial tenure.

Polis won reelection to a second term, defeating Republican nominee Heidi Ganahl, a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents.

Polis was elected governor on November 6, 2018. Boldly Forward, a 501(c)4 nonprofit, was formed as the transition team, working with Keystone Center as facilitator. Polis was sworn in on January 8, 2019. An effort to recall him and other Democratic elected officials failed to submit any signatures; Polis said of the effort, "Recalls should not be used for partisan gamesmanship". In 2025, Polis had an approval rate of 41% and a disapproval rate of 52% among Colorado voters.

Polis has been described as both progressive and libertarian-leaning. He has spoken in favor of abortion rights, school choice, replacing Colorado's property tax with a land value tax, and eliminating Colorado's income tax. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Colorado, he was skeptical of enforcing the state's mask mandates for long periods of time, saying he personally wore masks but did not want "to force it on people". In 2022, the libertarian magazine Reason wrote that he was "the most libertarian governor in America". Polis has also called himself a "libertarian", but the characterization has been disputed by some libertarians, with critics pointing to his record on gun control, alcohol regulation, and taxes as inconsistent with libertarian principles.

In September 2015, Polis voiced support for altering university disciplinary processes surrounding campus rape to allow for cases to be judged against a reasonable likelihood standard, saying, "If there are 10 people who have been accused, and under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, it seems better to get rid of all 10 people ... we're not talking about depriving them of life or liberty, we're talking about them being transferred to another university, for crying out loud." After being criticized for these remarks, Polis apologized, saying that, "I went too far by implying that I support expelling innocent students from college campuses, which is something neither I nor other advocates of justice for survivors of sexual assault support".

Polis supports the legalization of cannabis, saying in 2011, "Just as the policy of prohibition failed nationally with alcohol—it's now up to states and counties—I think we should do the same with marijuana." Legislation he has introduced includes the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act in 2013, the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act in 2015, and the McClintock–Polis amendment in 2015 (to prevent federal interference in states that have legalized medical or recreational use; it failed 206–222). He was also an original cosponsor of the McClintock–Polis Amendment, introduced in 2015, and the Marijuana Justice Act, first introduced in the House in 2018. In February 2017, Polis launched the Congressional Cannabis Caucus along with Representatives Don Young, Earl Blumenauer, and Dana Rohrabacher. In 2021, he pardoned 1,351 Coloradans convicted of marijuana possession.

Polis supports an open and free internet, and has been critical of SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA, saying in an interview with Forbes, "I oppose piracy and want to see intellectual property protected because that is what fosters and rewards innovation. But SOPA won't accomplish a meaningful reduction in piracy and causes massive collateral damage to the Internet ecosystem." While debating SOPA on the House floor Polis said that SOPA and PIPA "directly threaten the very internet that has brought humanity great prosperity and greater peace" and "Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on." Polis and 167 other House members voted against CISPA.

Polis and Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Darrell Issa sponsored Aaron's Law in the wake of the suicide of computer programmer and internet activist Aaron Swartz, the co-founder of Reddit, who was facing computer and wire fraud charges, more than 30 years in prison and fines of over $1 million for violating the terms of service for illegally downloading academic journal articles from the digital library JSTOR. The proposed bill would exclude terms of service violations from the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and from the wire fraud statute. Polis said that the charges brought by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz were "ridiculous and trumped-up" and that "It's absurd that he was made a scapegoat. I would hope that this doesn't happen to anyone else."

Polis was the first non-incumbent openly gay man elected to Congress, and the first openly gay parent in Congress. He is also the nation's second openly gay parent to hold state-level government office. Polis and his husband, Marlon Reis, have a son and a daughter, born in 2011 and 2014, respectively. Polis is Jewish.

In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an event widely considered a watershed moment in the modern LGBTQ rights movement, Queerty named Polis one of the Pride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people". Polis enjoys video games such as League of Legends. His favorite champions include Maokai and Anivia. He is also an avid fan of the Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rockies, Denver Nuggets, and Denver Broncos. He is a fan of South Park and interviewed the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.