Jared Schutz Polis is an American politician, entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist serving as the 43rd governor of Colorado since 2019.
44 Facts About Jared Polis
2.
Jared Polis was elected governor of Colorado in 2018 and reelected in a landslide in 2022.
3.
Jared Polis is the first Jew elected governor of Colorado.
4.
Jared Polis is the son of Stephen Schutz and Susan Jared Polis Schutz, founders of greeting card and book publisher Blue Mountain Arts.
5.
Jared Polis was born at Boulder Community Hospital in Boulder, Colorado, in 1975.
6.
Jared Polis lived in San Diego, California, as a high school student, graduating from La Jolla Country Day School in three years with multiple honors.
7.
In February 1998, Jared Polis founded ProFlowers, an online florist, in La Jolla, California.
8.
Jared Polis has founded one charter school and co-founded another.
9.
Jared Polis has received the Boulder Daily Camera's 2007 Pacesetter Award in Education and the Kauffman Foundation Community Award.
10.
In 2000, Jared 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.
11.
Jared Polis's election was one of the closest in Colorado history, as he defeated incumbent Ben Alexander by 90 votes out of 1.6 million cast.
12.
In 2006, Jared 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.
13.
In 2014, Jared 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.
14.
Jared Polis succeeded Mark Udall, who was elected to the United States Senate that year.
15.
In 2018, Jared Polis announced his candidacy for governor of Colorado.
16.
Jared Polis won reelection to a second term, defeating Republican nominee Heidi Ganahl, a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents.
17.
An effort to recall him and other Democratic elected officials failed to submit any signatures; Jared Polis said of the effort, "Recalls should not be used for partisan gamesmanship".
18.
Jared Polis was an original cosponsor of the Marijuana Justice Act that was first introduced in the House in 2018.
19.
In February 2017, Jared Polis launched the Congressional Cannabis Caucus along with Representatives Don Young, Earl Blumenauer, and Dana Rohrabacher.
20.
Jared Polis voted against the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, and opposes Section 1021, which has drawn controversy about implications to detention policy.
21.
Jared Polis has been a vocal opponent of the PATRIOT ACT.
22.
In May 2014, Jared Polis became the first US representative to accept campaign donations via Bitcoin.
23.
Jared Polis has sponsored other education bills and legislation regarding students, including:.
24.
In 2014, Jared Polis sponsored two ballot measures targeting hydraulic fracturing, Initiatives 88 and 89.
25.
Jared Polis sought to move fracking from 500 feet from people's homes to 2,000 feet to improve homeowners' quality of life in affected areas.
26.
Jared Polis co-sponsored a bill that would have legalized the interstate shipment of raw milk.
27.
Jared Polis took a congressional delegation trip to Afghanistan, meeting with former Afghan Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, US military officials and diplomats.
28.
Jared Polis criticized expanding US troops in Afghanistan, and supported putting resources in intelligence and special operations.
29.
Jared Polis voted for the 2010 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act expanding economic sanctions against Iran under the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, and co-sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009, authorizing state and local governments to direct divestiture from, and prevent investment in, companies with investments of $20,000,000 or more in Iran's energy sector.
30.
On May 29,2019, Jared Polis signed House Bill 1124, immediately prohibiting law enforcement officials in Colorado from holding undocumented immigrants solely on the basis of a request from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
31.
Jared Polis is one of several US governors who have been relocating migrants via publicly sponsored buses to other US cities, including New York City and Chicago.
32.
At the time of his departure from Congress, Jared Polis was one of seven openly gay members of the 113th Congress, and caucused in the LGBT Equality Caucus.
33.
Jared Polis was the leading sponsor of the Student Non-Discrimination Act with Senator Al Franken, who introduced the act in the Senate.
34.
Jared Polis voted for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which prohibited openly gay and lesbian members of the Military from serving.
35.
Jared Polis was a supporter and cosponsor of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
36.
In September 2014, Jared Polis filed a discharge petition to bring the LGBT Employment Non-Discrimination Act to the floor of the House of Representatives for a proper vote.
37.
Jared Polis urged Obama to reconsider the inclusion of Malaysia and Brunei in a Trans-Pacific Partnership because of their negative record on LGBT rights.
38.
Jared Polis was the first member of Congress to accept Bitcoin donations, and supports school choice initiatives and eliminating Colorado's income tax.
39.
Jared Polis is one of the few people to be openly gay when first elected to the House, and the first openly gay parent in Congress.
40.
Jared Polis is the nation's second openly gay parent to hold state-level government office.
41.
Jared Polis and his husband, Marlon Reis, have a son and a daughter, born in 2011 and 2014, respectively.
42.
Jared Polis is an avid Colorado Rockies and Denver Broncos fan.
43.
In July 2020, Jared Polis donated $1000 to Representative Ilhan Omar's primary opponent in her 2020 reelection campaign.
44.
In September 2021, Jared Polis married his longtime partner, Marlon Reis, in a small Jewish Renewal ceremony with family and a few friends at a synagogue in Boulder.