After failed recall attempts, searching for next move
When Congressman Ken Buck took the reins of the Colorado Republican Party in March, he stood on the stage in Englewood High School’s auditorium and told the party faithful they were going to teach Democrats “how to spell R-EC-A-L-L.”
The room erupted in applause.
Republicans, still reeling from bruising losses in 2018 that gave Democrats complete control of state government, were looking for a way to fight back. Two days before the meeting, Democrats passed a red-flag bill through the Senate on a narrow, party-line vote. A major reform of Colorado’s oil and gas industry was working its way through the statehouse. And Gov. Jared Polis had recently signed a bill into law pledging Colorado’s Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
Republicans, as Buck put it, wanted someone or something to “let the world know this is not a blue state.”
So in the nearly six months since that fiery speech in the high school auditorium, conservatives have tried to recall five Democratic lawmakers and the governor. Four of those campaigns failed to gather enough signatures to put a recall election on the ballot, one recall target resigned for unrelated reasons, and the attempt to remove Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo, is ongoing. His opponents have until Oct. 18 to turn in their petitions.
“I think the recall process has done what it was supposed to do,” said former GOP chairman Dick Wadhams. “It provided an outlet for Republicans. … Were they politically smart? I think it’s a resounding no.”
The Republican Party itself wasn’t involved officially, but one of the efforts that fizzled the fastest — the attempt to recall Rep. Tom Sullivan, father of an Aurora theater shooting victim — was organized in part by Kristi Burton Brown, vice chairwoman of the state party.
Buck declined through a
spokesman to discuss the failed recalls this week.
But Coloradans who spent their weekends outside county fairs and farmer’s markets collecting signatures for the recalls say they got a lot out of their efforts, even if they didn’t get an election on the ballot. They formed new friendships, learned about the political process and connected with a community of people who also want to change the direction of the state. They also have a list of names and addresses they claim numbers in the hundreds of thousands of potential 2020 voters.
“We fell short,” Dismiss Polis spokeswoman Karen Kataline said as she stood on the steps of the Capitol this month. “Yet we have made history, regardless.”
Democracy First Colorado spokesman Curtis Hubbard, whose group worked against all the recalls, called them scams.
“Voters have sent a clear message: They have little interest in recalls that are thinly disguised campaigns to raise money and gather voters’ personal data,” Hubbard said.
Colorado is one of 20 states with a process for removing some of its elected leaders, but the Centennial State has one of the shortest windows for circulating recall petitions. Campaigns have 60 days to collect signatures equal to 25% of the number of ballots cast in the last election for that office. Those who sign must live in that district.
On the other hand, Colorado elected officials can be recalled for any reason — or none. Some states, such as New Mexico and Kansas, limit the reasons for a recall to things such as malfeasance, neglect of duty, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties and conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude.
That’s something Democrats who have faced recalls this summer say they’d like to look at changing.
“Recalling someone because you don’t like the way a person voted on a couple of issues disrespects the electorate and undermines the democratic process,” said Sen. Pete Lee of Colorado Springs.
Colorado Democratic Party chairwoman Morgan Carroll said she thinks the process is worth reviewing.
“I think it’s turning a very serious issue into a frivolous political game,” Carroll said. “It’s a tool. The current law is showing how easily this is abused.”
Changing the law on recalls would require an amendment to the Colorado Constitution, and Democratic state lawmakers would need support from some Republicans to get the two-thirds majority necessary to put it on the ballot. And that’s not likely to happen.
Rep. Dave Williams, RColorado Springs, threatened to grind work in the Capitol to a “crawl” if any recall reform legislation gets introduced in 2020.
“Politicians don’t get to protect themselves because they hate democracy in action,” he wrote on Twitter.
Even Democratic Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg isn’t sure about recall reform: “It’s a difficult thing to explain to voters that they should limit their ability to recall.”
He told The Denver Post that Coloradans, for the vast majority of the state’s history, have understood that recalls were a measure of last resort.
“Probably a better, faster, more efficient ways to change things is allow these people to fail and hopefully show that this is not the way to engage in the democratic process,” Fenberg said.
Republicans remain divided about their best path forward in Colorado. After Buck won a contested election to lead the state GOP, he told The Post his plan was to “fight for every voter in Colorado” and to make sure they understood the differences between Republicans and Democrats.
Moderate Republicans such as state Sen. Jack Tate want to meet Democrats in the middle on issues such as recall reform and add a few guardrails to the process such as prohibiting unverifiable or defamatory language on petition statements and including an estimated cost to taxpayers for the election.
Other conservatives, though, want Dismiss Polis and other recall groups to keep trying.
Kataline said nothing has been decided yet, but her group plans to have a meeting at the end of September. The Official Recall of Jared Polis group, which opposed the failed attempt, has been hinting it is working on a plan as well.
Wadhams said he can’t imagine a worse direction for his party than a neverending series of recall attempts.
“I do think Gov. Polis’ hand has been strengthened by this because, well, how does that quote go? ‘When you strike at a king, you must kill him,’ ” Wadhams said.
He’d prefer Republicans set their sights on a recall campaign that he says has “a real shot” at winning in 2020: the repeal of the state’s national popular vote law, which qualified for the ballot last month. The law would assign Colorado’s Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate with the most popular votes nationwide if and when enough states sign on to the compact.
Wadhams thinks getting behind that issue could be a real win for Republican lawmakers up and down the ticket.
“It encompasses the Democratic majority’s arrogance,” he said. And while he doesn’t think it will sweep Republicans back to power next November, he’s certain it will help the party.