Once derided as a rag tag effort destined to fail, the organizers of the recall campaign of Senate President John Morse proved their naysayers wrong and turned in over double the minimum number of signatures required this morning.
To initiate a recall election of Morse, 7,178 signatures were required. Organizers easily topped that this morning. As KDVR‘s Eli Stokols scooped:
DENVER — The group working to recall Colorado Senate President John Morse over the passage of Democratic gun control legislation earlier this year turned in more than 16,000 signatures at the Secretary of State’s office Monday.
That’s more than double the number of valid signatures — 7,178, a percentage of voter turnout in 2010 when Morse was elected — that will be needed to force a recall election in El Paso County later this year.
Morse’s backers will have a couple weeks to review the signatures and to contest those that they believe may be invalid; then the Secretary of State’s office will go to work reviewing all the signatures and determining how many valid ones were received.
The exact number of signatures, per the recall organizers, is 16,046. Per their press release:
The results of this historic recall effort were achieved despite the efforts of NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, Morse’s robocalls to voters, false attacks on signature collectors’ reputations and Morse’s political machine headed by Ed Hall, Chairman of the Denver Democrats and filing agent for Morse’s antirecall group “A Whole Lot of People for John Morse.” Hall is known for his Democrat Party biography referring to Colorado Springs as a “…right-wing, religious whack-job stronghold.”*
What makes this especially damaging for Morse — who pushed a gun control bill dubbed “insane…absolutely nuts” by Democratic Rep. Ed Vigil — is that he only received 13,866 votes in his last election in 2010.
We think it’s safe to say the anger and frustration among his constituents is palpable.
Whether Morse will resign his seat to avoid the recall is still a possibility, despite Morse’s protestations that he will stay in to the “bitter end.”
A recall election could be a tough challenge for Morse as it will be a special election, whose electorate is likely to be less Democratic than one turning out in a presidential year or even a regularly scheduled November election.
Should Morse lose the recall campaign it will send a shot across the bow of Democrats and those in favor of gun control across the country. We’re betting Mayor Bloomberg is whipping out his checkbook as we speak.
UPDATE: The Associated Press adds some historical context to this monumental achievement:
Gun-rights activists have turned in petition signatures to set up the first recall of a state lawmaker in Colorado history.
"The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger." – Andrew Jackson
Only Senate District 11 (Morse's district) registered voters were allowed to sign the petition.
Christine Belleau: Right! “Don’t read any more of these [constituents’ emails] than you absolutely have to.” http://www.cologop.org/senate-pres-morse-advises-democrats-to-ignore-constituents-on-national-tv/
It is much more then gun control (though this is very important)! This man (Morse) has bought into the liberal elitism, BIG government and a nanny state! Thank God people are starting to see "behind the curtain'! We don't need these kind of people that vote, legislate and feather his/her own nest for their own gain
now we just need to see it all the way and Boot his ass to the curb then go after the next sob on the list..
GO WHACKOS!
I'm sure MANY of our States Sheriff signatures are on that petition also!
Give him Hell Guys.. Morse is a turd in Sheep's clothing… What a loser.. Unfortunately I live beyond his district but have gladly contributed to remove this worthless POS…
Congratz Colorado!!
if you mean the article, just copy and paste the web address from your browser bar and paste it into your facepook status.
FYI, it is the other way around, Sec. of State validates signatures, then Morse gets 15 calendar days to raise his own issues on remaining.
Cary, Hudak recall is over. It failed 🙁
Let Bloombeeg keep throwing his money out. He backed the recall efforts on Joe Arpaio and lost that big time! ! Woohoo!!!!
More proof that people do not favor gun control legislation. Now is the time that we must all stand together to stop more attacks against our 2nd Amendment.
Seems like this picture is enough to get him recalled. But that might just be me.
Well done! Long live our Constitution!
for some reason i cant share this
They will probably say most of the signatures are not legal since they are probably all from Colorado and none from Chicago!
Well done everyone. Yahoo!
Here is a stat for Obama. 100% of the gun owners in Morse's district are about to fuck him.
YEA! Now what about the giron, and hudak recall efforts?
Awesome!
Yesssss! Right ON!
First steps to FREEDOM!! Yea! Yea! Yea! First steps to getting Colorado back from tyrants! Yea! Yea! Yea!
Now watch the polls for voter fraud please!
YES!
A Great Big THANKS to all of you! We appreciate you.
Hooray! WOW! Awesome! Thank you…Thank you…Thank you!
This and to hurt liberal fox to report, one of their hero's will be recalled.