Governor’s mansion doubles as free soapbox for First Gentleman’s animal agenda

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

The First Gentleman’s lecture series — who’s footing the bill?

A couple weeks back, I noticed an article about a talk at the governor’s mansion about wolf reintroduction involving the First Gentleman and his guests for the evening. The article is linked first below if you’d like to give it a read.

If you know anything about the First Gentleman, you know he is a dedicated animal rights activist. Has been for a while. It should therefore not shock anyone that the guests at this talk were also animal rights/wildlife advocates.

I won’t go into the details of the talk. I’ll leave it to you to read up if you’d like.

The First Gentleman has the same First Amendment rights as anyone else. He’s welcome to have an opinion and express it whether I agree or not.

There is a difference, however when you use public money to fund your expression vs. using private. Public money should be spent by bodies that are elected and as close to the people as possible. Public money ought to be used in ways that, if true neutrality is not possible, honoring the diverse viewpoints around this state, providing a balanced look from a variety of perspectives.

I.e. how the First Gentleman’s presentations are funded matters. He is welcome to push whatever agenda he sees fit. I am welcome to not have to fund it.

After reading the Sun article, a natural question presented itself to me. Was Reis using any public money, or did he receive any special consideration the public wouldn’t given his station in life?

About one of the only ways I could come anywhere near to getting an answer to this question (our governor studied government transparency at the same school as our AG) was to look at the governor’s mansion itself. The Boettcher Mansion is the official residence for the governor though Polis et. al. don’t live there.

I emailed to the person who fields questions about the mansion itself as well as the governor’s press secretary with the following questions:

–Is the mansion available to the public for events? If so, can you tell me particulars like fees, etc.?

–Were the events put on by the First Gentleman open to the public? Were they official state events? If so where could I find a list of costs, etc?

–If they were not, was he (the FG) charged the usual rates?

I got no answer from the Boettcher contact, but in a surprisingly unusual turn of events, the governor’s office actually responded. Quoting from my email with the link left intact:

“Hi Cory, this was a public event promoted on the First Gentleman’s Facebook page. You can find information on mansion events here: https://governor-residence.colorado.gov/events-at-the-residence“

Further digging on the First Gentleman’s FB page showed that the events are indeed public, and promoted on his page (see the image at the head of this post).**

Following the link in the response above, I found that indeed there was a fair bit of information on rental terms and costs for the Boettcher Mansion. I attached a screenshot of the rental rates as screenshot 1. You can clearly see quite a price break for government and/or nonprofit events.

At about the same time, I also sent in a CORA request to the governor’s office to see if there were any invoices sent to the First Gentleman for renting the mansion or any contracts for its use involving him and his speaker series.

The response I got back is attached as screenshot 2. No records exist.

I did follow up (twice) with the governor’s office to see about an answer to my question about taxpayer money funding this. I attached the results of my CORA request to my second email and did (again, surprising for Polis) get another response, a response which essentially confirmed my suspicions about this whole thing.

Quoting from my email with the link intact (this is the same Sun story I linked to myself, the one that started me wondering):

“The Governor’s Office, including the Governor and First Gentleman, are able to use the Governor’s Residence at Boettcher Mansion as needed, therefore there was no cost to use the residence for this discussion. The First Gentleman, like all the First Ladies who came before him, is a member of the administration and uses the mansion’s event space. The event focused on strategies for reducing conflict with predators to better support Colorado ranchers and healthy ecosystems. Here is a story that was written about the event: https://coloradosun.com/2025/09/05/wolves-headline-talk-at-colorado-governors-mansion/“

I will leave it to you to read the article, see what the seminar was about, and come to your own conclusions on the event vis a vis the spokesperson’s response above. I will also leave it to you to come to your own conclusions about whether or not this event (and/or others by the First Gentleman) are in the same category as previous events by the First Spouse of any particular governor. You know my feelings, and reading this quote does not sway me.

That is, I hold to this event being categorically different from, say, a charity event to raise awareness about cancer or something. It’s also not viewpoint neutral and nor have there been any events with the First Gentleman and any ranchers or representatives of the other side of this issue.

As such, this strikes me as an unfair form of special treatment for a particular viewpoint that we get to pay for, but couldn’t pursue ourselves in the same way.

**If you would like to be in the know and receive invitations to future First Gentleman events, you’ll find a sign up form linked third below.

https://coloradosun.com/2025/09/05/wolves-headline-talk-at-colorado-governors-mansion/

https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/how-high-would-taxes-have-to-be-to?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewvopFLu2USCeAG6Srl-M-IS-T_nNCW2baRfMkHUtTl9byyQ/viewform

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT SUBSTACK

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.