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Gun control legislation prompted the first ever recall election of a Colorado state lawmaker. A petition to remove Colorado State Senate President John Morse from office garnered enough signatures for the recall process to proceed.
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler recently announced that the El Paso Freedom Defense Committee gathered more than the 7,178 voter signatures necessary to initiate the John Morse recall election. The Senator Morse recall movement has drawn country-wide attention due to its relation to the ongoing gun control debate. Fellow Democrat State Senator Angela Giron is now also at the center of a recall drive in Colorado.
Second Amendment advocates began the recall movement in March after Senate President John Morse came out in support of Governor John Hickenlooper’s gun control initiative. The state senate leader is from Colorado Springs and reportedly played a major role in pushing the three gun control bills which Governor Hickenlooper signed earlier this year.
When asked about the 16,000 valid voter signatures the Senator Morse recall petition had received, effort organizer Rob Harris said, “It just goes to show how interested people are in making sure Morse is recalled.”
The amount of support both Colorado recall efforts are receiving make the “90 percent of Americans support background checks and gun control” statistics seems even less plausible. If background checks could actually prevent guns from finding their way into the hands of criminals, perhaps there would be significant support, but such laws only impact law-abiding gun owners to begin with.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (based in Washington, D.C.) is not happy about the Colorado recall movement. The political group called the recall organizers “extremists” who want to waste “hundreds of thousands” of taxpayer dollars. Any time Constitution-loving Americans take action to thwart infringement upon our rights, liberals toss about derogatory terms and dismiss common sense entirely. Hearing progressives voice concern about wasting taxpayer dollars was quite bizarre indeed. Apparently the far-left believes “Obama phones” and multi-million dollar safari trips to Africa for the president’s family are legitimate expenses, but utilizing legal remedies to remove irresponsible lawmakers from office is not.
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State Senator John Morse released this video about the recall on his Facebook page:
“We still have miles to go, frankly, before we sleep. So any help that you can give us in fundraising or in volunteering, even from around the country. We can get phone lists to you and things like that and have you help from Boston, Massachusetts, or San Francisco, California. So thanks for all that you’ve done and thanks for all that you’re going to do as we move forward to take on this tiger.”
Senator Morse has reportedly received $20,000 from the nationwide liberal organization, America Votes, to help him fight the recall. The state senator’s attorney is challenging the recall effort because the petitions circulated by the El Paso Freedom Defense Committee reportedly neglected to note that an election would be held if enough valid signatures were gathered.
Attorney Mark Grueskin had this to say about the John Morse recall petition:
“This isn’t some technicality or loophole. This is a critical piece of information that the proponents of this petition decided not to impart to petition signers.”
Colorado Republican Party attorney Richard Westfall maintains that Grueskin is not reading the state constitution properly and the angst is merely a “hyper-technical argument” that would limit the right of citizens to recall lawmakers.
Senator Morse has 15 days to challenge the recall petition signatures. If such a petition challenge fails, Governor Hickenlooper must schedule a recall election day between 45 and 75 days after the designated protest period ends.
Democrats currently control both houses of the Colorado legislature. Although the liberal shift in power only occurred in November, a recent Quinnipiac University poll indicates growing voter remorse. The poll suggests that Colorado voters are now expressing a greater level of disapproval of both the legislature and Governor John Hickenlooper.
Some residents reportedly consider the most recent legislative session the “most liberal” in the history of the Centennial State. Floyd Ciruli of the Denver-based Ciruli Associates polling firm said there is a “full-scale revolt” currently going on in the state.
Ciruli also had this to say about the evolving political landscape in Colorado:
“Colorado is becoming a backdrop for this issue to play out nationally. There’s a movement afoot in Washington to bring back some of the gun bills, and they’ll be watching to see what happens here.”
The Pueblo Freedom and Rights initiated recall against State Senator Angela Giron reportedly has garnered 13,570 signatures – 11,285 were needed to put the seat-removal wheels in motion. Like Morse, Giron also voted in favor of the three gun control proposals supported by the governor.
State Senator Giron had this to say when asked about the recall effort, “This is what my constituents wanted.” The Colorado Democrat also claimed that she has received support from firearms-owning residents who also support Hickenlooper’s gun control agenda.
Angela Giron appears to be quite disgruntled about the recall movement against her. When discussing the matter with local media, the Colorado State Senator accused her opponents of using “racially charged vitriol” against her volunteer supporters. She also had this to say during an interview with local media, “When people are hollering out ‘You need to be deported,’ you ask, ‘What does that have to do with anything we’re talking about here?’”
Both Angela Giron and John Morse can avoid the expense and possible embarrassment of losing a recall election if they resign in the designated time period – but that is not likely to happen. Colorado Democrats appear to be gearing up for a time-consuming and expensive battle against Second Amendment and recall supporters in the state.
The El Paso Freedom Defense Committee cited a rather pertinent George Washington quote on their recall supporting website. The words of wisdom from our first president reads:
“The power under the Constitution will always be in the people, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and wherever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will be recalled.”
The good citizens of Colorado have every right to attempt to remove from office senators who want to thwart the Second Amendment. Would you vote to recall state lawmakers who pass gun control laws which would limit the right to bear arms?
