Governor Jared Polis is coming under fire with a formal campaign finance complaint from the GOP. State Republican Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown filed the complaint this week after Polis announced that Coloradoans would be receiving money soon in the form of tax rebate checks.
According to the formal complaint itself, it states that Brown reported that Governor Polis violated the Fair Campaign Practices Act and campaign finance rules. The boxes checked are:
Failure to report an expenditure
Missing or improper disclaimer
Prohibited expenditure
Violation of Electioneering Law
In the section where it stated to provide an explanation, Brown writes,
Today, Governor Jared Polis released a letter he is sending to every taxpayer in Colorado, along with their $750 TABOR refund check. This letter blatantly misleads voters by refusing to say the word TABOR or "Taxpayer Bill of Rights." Instead the Governor uses his own campaign language of "Colorado Cashback," a phrase he coined during his campaign for re-election. Due to the Governor's use of campaign language, this letter is a campaign mailing and not an official "instructional letter" as he told the media. The Governor's refusal to call the refund a TABOR refund, after he campaigned against TABOR refunds in 2019, demonstrates that he is promoting his own campaign instead of being honest with voters and informing them of the true source of the refund: TABOR, not his campaign term "Colorado Cashback."
The complaint states that Polis is using $2.7 million dollars of taxpayer money to print and send the mailer ahead of the election. The issue addressed as that this is being used as a campaign mailer not an explanation of where the money came from.
The Governor's office sent out this news release on August 3rd concerning the money that would be coming back to folks in Colorado.
The complaint, summited by Brown is displayed below:
The Governor's office has not yet responded to the complaint.
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