So You Like Recalls, Do You? Get Ready For More

More to this easily-missed comment on the Recall Hudak Too campaign's Facebook page than meets the eye:

This year has already witnessed the first two recalls of sitting Colorado legislators in our state's history, and an attempt on a third state senator is presently underway. Victory in the two recalls held this past summer has put Colorado Republicans within a single seat of taking control of the Colorado Senate. With the balloting process thrown into disarray by a court ruling that prevented the normal delivery of mail ballots in recall elections, Republicans have found a way of overcoming growing Democratic dominance in general elections, picking off individual legislators in contests tilted to their advantage.

Well folks, it does appear that two can play at this game. The fact is, freshman Sen. Vicki Marble has had some of the worst embarrassments we've ever seen in such a short legislative career, from her rant against equal pay for women to her disastrous comments about race and diet that made national news. Marble is also a hand-picked Rocky Mountain Gun Owners candidate, which makes her an appealing target for Democratic retaliation against Dudley Brown's heavy involvement in this year's recalls.

To be perfectly honest, we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It's folly to think that Democrats can't succeed in getting a recall election on the ballot against Marble or other Republican legislators. Marble's crazy comments and unappealing votes as part of the Republican caucus can certainly be vilified by petition gatherers, as much as anything Democrats have said and done this year. There's no reason to think that a similar investment of energy and capital to what Republicans have carried out against vulnerable Democrats can't succeed against vulnerable Republicans like Marble. In both cases, it's the aggressors who have the momentum.

We've warned repeatedly this year that successful recall elections had a strong likelihood of leading to more such recalls, and that in the end a vicious retaliatory cycle of recalls substituting for a functional democratic process was a very real possibility. At this point, Democrats have little choice but to fight back in kind, and turn the advantages Republicans have taken in the recalls so far against them.

Like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle.

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The Daily Show Asks Denver Voters Why They Did Not Vote In Recalls

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Last month's recalls occurred in what was generally Colorado Springs and Pueblo.  No part of Denver was included in the districts that voted.  That of course did not stop the Daily Show from canvassing people on the 16th St. Mall in Denver to figure out why they did/did not vote in the recalls.  

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“CAPartyGirl” Brings Colorado Recalls Home To California

Recall spokesperson Jennifer Kerns.

As the San Francisco Chronicle's Melody Gutierrez reports:

Gun-rights advocates plan to target Assembly Speaker John Pérez and four other Democratic lawmakers in a recall campaign to serve as retribution for California passing an assortment of gun-control bills this year.

Political consultant Jennifer Kerns announced Thursday that the lawmakers they will attempt to unseat include Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, state Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, state Sen. Norma Torres, D-Pomona (Los Angeles County), Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton (Orange County), and Peréz, who terms out of his Los Angeles seat next year…

Kerns helped lead a successful recall in Colorado last month in which two Colorado Democratic legislators were replaced with Republican members due to their support of gun restrictions. Kerns said the Colorado efforts sparked calls for loosening restrictions in California, which has the toughest gun-control laws in the country.

We don't know enough about these California legislators targeted for recall or their districts to make any predictions, but former Colorado "grassroots" recall spokesperson Jennifer "CAPartyGirl" Kerns, a veteran communications flack for Americans for Prosperity and the struck-down Proposition 8 gay marriage ban in California, has evidently found her career niche! With an added twist: appearing with Kerns yesterday was one Asm. Tim Donnelly, a hard-right state assemblyman representing the high desert of southern California, described in this story as "running a low-funded campaign for governor next year." As we reported earlier this month, Jennifer Kerns was just hired as spokesperson for Donnelly's gubernatorial campaign.

Think about it: Kerns, despite an undeniably disastrous personal performance as spokesperson for the Colorado recalls, was nonetheless part of an unprecedented and successful campaign to recall two sitting lawmakers. Now she's working for gubernatorial candidate Donnelly, and at the same time instigating "Colorado-style" recalls against California lawmakers–which Donnelly is openly capitalizing on. Whatever Kerns' failings as a spokesperson, we suspect she has a Powerpoint about the Colorado recalls that will move any God-fearing red-blooded gun-loving American patriot to open their wallet. And faithful readers in Colorado, bracing for a permanent, perpetual recall election season substituting for a functioning democratic process? Can you really say with confidence that it can't happen in California too?

Don't get us wrong, we wouldn't even wish this torment on, well, California. But it appears to be on the way.

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BREAKING: Recalls Upended By Court Ruling (Again)

UPDATE #2: FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

The Sept. 10 recall elections of two Democratic Colorado lawmakers was supposed to be the first test-run of a new election overhaul, passed this year by Democrats, that would have sent mail ballots to every voter.

Now, those elections won’t involve any mail ballots at all.

After a long day in court, District Judge Robert McGahey ruled in favor of Colorado Libertarians, who’d sued after being denied a spot on the recall ballot because they failed to meet a deadline, put in place by the new election law, to submit petitions within 10 days of the election date being set…

“I know what this decision means,” McGahey told the court as he issued the ruling around 7 p.m. Monday night, alluding to concerns from county clerks of escalating election costs and from Democrats who worried that the loss of mail ballots, which can’t be printed and mailed to voters in time if candidate signatures are validated so late, will lower voter turnout.

—–

UPDATE: The Colorado Springs Gazette's Megan Schrader:

[Judge Robert] McGahey said Secretary of State Scott Gessler erred when ignoring the constitution in favor of a new state statute that set deadlines for ballot access in the recall elections.

The new deadline was important for another part of the new election law that required ballots to be sent in the mail to every registered voter, regardless of whether they requested one.

—– 

We're still working on the details, but a ruling late today on a conflict between the state's new election statute and the Colorado constitution in Denver District Court appears to throw the upcoming recall special elections into chaos so as to give third party candidates a shot at the ballot. FOX 31's Eli Stokols Tweeted a short while ago:

Apparently, minor party candidates will have the chance to get on the recall successor candidate ballot by August 26th now, which means the expected mailing of ballots next week will not go forward. This decision is also subject to appeal, which seems quite likely under the circumstances. Stand by for updates…

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Today In BS: “Gypsy Voters” To Overrun Recalls?

?A startling headline went up at the national conservative blog Daily Caller earlier this week:

Colorado recall elections risk becoming a ‘free-for-all’ under new Dem-sponsored election law

In yet another twist in the recall elections against gun control-supporting Democrats, it appears that anyone in the state of Colorado can vote on whether Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron get the boot or stay in office.

The quirk is a result of a new election law passed during the same contentious Democratic-controlled legislative session that produced the gun control bills — and in an additional bit of irony, Giron sponsored it in the state senate…

As reported by the Colorado Observer, the strict wording of the law can be interpreted to mean that anyone who has lived anywhere in Colorado for at least 22 days prior to the Sept. 10 recall elections can register to vote in Morse’s and Giron’s districts, all the way up until the day of the election, whether they live in those districts or not.

All that’s required under the new law is for prospective voters to tell election staff that they intend to move to those districts in the future. Those voters don’t actually have to  – state officials have no way of following up on such promises.

“Without further clarification from the Secretary of State’s rulemaking, I don’t believe any law would be broken,” Douglas County Clerk and Recorder Jack Arrowsmith told the Observer. [Pols emphasis]

So, you may have noticed that this latest scandalized claim from the right, citing a supposed "loophole" in the state's new election laws that allows voters from across the state to vote in these two Senate districts in Colorado Springs and Pueblo, hasn't been repeated by legitimate local or national media.

The reason is simple: it's a load of BS.

Folks, giving false information of any kind for the purposes of registering to vote is always a crime. It was a crime before the passage of this year's Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act, and it is still a crime. If a person misrepresents where they live, who they are or any other pertinent information, that is voter fraud. It is a criminal act. Every form completed by such a voter registering or changing registration contains clear language warning that they are affirming that information under penalty of perjury. And that's just for registration. In Colorado, if you cast a vote under an assumed name, address or any other falsified information, you are committing a felony. Period.

There are numerous Colorado statutes that detail these procedures and penalties. We've talked to a number of knowledgeable sources about it, and none of them can explain what Douglas County Clerk Jack Arrowsmith is thinking asserting that this kind of activity might be legal. Of course it's not. And the clerks certainly can track this. And district attorneys stand ready to prosecute all such violations of Colorado law.

Seeing as how this preposterous notion is only spreading in conservative circles, we would strongly advise somebody on that side of the aisle set the record straight before, well, something embarrassing happens.

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