Colorado recall election a template for reclaiming liberty

June 11, 2013

By Katy Grimes

The historic recall election underway in Colorado of Senate President John Morse is shaping up to be a template for other grassroots groups unhappy with elected officials. Morse is facing a recall for his support of controversial gun control laws, including expanded background checks and limits on the ammunition gun magazines can hold.

This is the first recall election of a Colorado legislator in the state’s history. Morse became the subject of the recall because of a bill he authored holding owners of assault weapons liable for damages caused by their guns, along with other anti-gun bills. While he eventually backed off on the liability bill, voters’ outrage morphed into a recall.

Don’t mess with the Second Amendment

What started as a group of Second Amendment supporters unhappy with a top Colorado Democratic lawmaker over the passage of strict gun control legislation has grown into a full-fledged, serious-as-a-bullet recall election.

Helping out the recall supporters, the Basic Freedom Defense Fund formed a committee for recalling Morse, representing state organizations, local businesses and many volunteers.

“He broke his oath to protect and uphold the Constitution by championing citizen disarmament legislation including a Draconian standard capacity magazine ban and a ‘universal background check’ bill,” BFDF said on its website. “Both of these are unenforceable without registration and even 55 of Colorado’s 62 sheriffs have filed a lawsuit to have these overturned.”

The group recently turned in double the signatures needed to force the recall election of Democratic state Senate President John Morse.

Who is helping Morse?

America Votes, a non-profit campaign group created to push progressive policies and candidates, of which New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a major backer, released a video in support of Morse recently. But a campaign finance report filed for the Morse supporters, “A Whole Lot of People for John Morse,” shows that America Votes is  funded by  every major left-wing special interest group in the country.

In addition to Bloomberg, America Votes supporters includes the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the SEIU, Emily’s list, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association, United Food and Commercial Workers, Sierra Club, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Progressive Majority, and many more.

I talked with Grassroots Radio Colorado host Ken Clark about the recall. Clark has been working diligently on the campaign to oust Morse, and told me they gathered more than 16,000 signatures, which await verification by the secretary of state’s office. Clark said if 7,200 of them are valid signatures from voters in Morse’s district, a recall election will take place.

However, Clark said they are up against a powerful political money machine, backed by Bloomberg. “It’s a national agenda, and Colorado is ground zero,” Clark said. The agenda plan is to kill off the Red States one by one, according to Clark. All told, these progressive-liberal groups have spent a great deal of money in Colorado, and managed to turn a solid red state into a blue state in only a few years, he said.

How a red state turned blue

In 2008, Colorado Democrats comprised 31.2 percent of registered voters; Republicans 34.14 percent, and Independents 34.19 percent, according to Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer, authors of “The Blueprint: How the Democrats won Colorado.”

According to the book, “Yet, in 2004 and 2006, the Dems took out the Republican governor, turned both state houses blue, as well as a U.S. Senate seat, and two U.S. House seats.”

Continuing with the plan, the Colorado Legislature recently passed bills to vote by mail, as well as allowing same-day voter registration. According to Clark, both bills were actively supported by America Votes, which claims to “help eliminate some of the confusion for voters at the polls.”

The bills also eliminate the category of “inactive” voters, which are regularly purged from the state voter rolls. But the most chilling aspect of the new law is citizen watchers of the elections will now be excluded by these new laws. Ballots will be handled exclusively by Colorado’s county clerks behind closed doors, out of the public eye.

CA going in the wrong direction

These are tactics used in California as well. As some states have enacted voter ID laws,  California has headed in the opposite direction. In September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a same-day voter registration bill, and an online voter registration bill. But many say online and same-day voter registration is a Democrat election guarantee, as it just makes it easier to commit voter fraud.

“Last November, Colorado had almost 10,000 attempted fraudulent votes,” a Washington Times story recently reported. “Half of those were late registrants. Of the other 5,000 ineligible voters, 700 had attempted to vote twice, 2,600 were not residents of the state, and 50 were felons not eligible to vote.”

This is reminiscent of the recent Senate District 16 Special Election between Republican Andy Vidak, and Democrat Leticia Valdez, which I recently wrote about. The immediate post-election results showed Vidak received 51.9 percent of the vote to Valdez’s 43 percent. But three days later, 6,500 provisional ballots appeared, taking Vidak’s share down below the needed 50 percent margin to avoid a runoff.

A provisional ballot is used when there are questions about a given voter’s identity, address or eligibility; or the voter’s ballot has already been recorded.

A Whole Lot of People For John Morse

The groups supporting A Whole Lot of People For John Morse all claim to be nonprofits. Yet Morse’s anti-recall campaign received huge cash infusions from three groups: Sixteen Thirty Fund, Citizens for Integrity, and Mainstream Colorado.

All three groups have ties to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns organization, now quite influential in Colorado politics, according to Clark.

“Yet isn’t it ironic there were 25 shootings in New York City last weekend, a gun-free zone,” Clark said.

Clark said there are other states in the crosshairs of America Votes and the Bloomberg groups, and he warned, “Texas is next.”