Denver, CO – After our revelation last week that Jared Polis’ business platform included plans to criminalize employment law and send business-owners to prison, (his words) Polis’ campaign responded to questions about it from the Denver Business Journal.

Instead of walking back the radical position, Polis’ campaign decided to double down:

“Asked about the video, Polis’ campaign did not shy away from the idea, which has not been a part of his stump speech on the campaign trail and is not mentioned among his issues on his website. Rather, officials said such increased penalties are needed to bring into line negligent businesses that are hurting Colorado workers through actions such as wage theft.”

Despite Polis’ claim to be pro-business, criminalizing a sometimes onerous and hard-to-navigate employment regulatory environment would disproportionately harm small businesses. The Colorado chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business has even weighed in the disastrous potential of enacting this economy-chilling proposal, adding that this sort of policy would scare business owners from moving to the state and hamper new business creation.

“We were all hoping there was some misunderstanding in regard to Jared Polis’ stance on the issue of jailing business-owners,” said Kelly Maher, executive director of Compass Colorado. “sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. This is really what he believes. Yikes.”

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