GUN RIGHTS GROUP GIVES UP RECALL BID OF REP. SULLIVAN
Colorado conservatives ended their effort to recall Rep. Tom Sullivan on Tuesday in a move that was hailed as a victory for gun control efforts nationwide.
“Today the gun lobby finally acknowledged what should have been clear to them on Election Day: Voters want leaders like Tom Sullivan, who is doing everything in his power to spare others from the terrible pain of gun violence,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement.
Colorado GOP vice chairwoman Kristi Brown and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, who had been collecting signatures to get the recall on the ballot, both said they instead will focus on the 2020 elections as well as the possibility of recalling a few Democratic state senators.
“While we are pulling the recall today to focus on other essential efforts, Sullivan does not get a free pass,” Brown wrote in a Facebook post announcing the decision Tuesday morning. “2020 is the year to oust him, with the support of voters who now know how extreme he is.”
On Monday, RMGO executive director Dudley Brown told The Denver Post he was “not confident” he could gather the 10,035 signatures from House District 37 voters by the July 12 deadline.
“I take the responsibility of spending RMGO donors’ money quite seriously,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “At this point, the best use of our resources is to refocus on other efforts.”
Sullivan is a freshman Democratic lawmaker who has become a symbol of the gun debate both nationally and in Colorado. The retired postal worker and Air Force veteran lost his son, Alex, in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting
and put passing gun control legislation at the center of his campaign.
“The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and the Colorado GOP again underestimated the support we have from the people in my district,” Sullivan said Tuesday.
He spent last weekend canvassing with volunteers and other elected Democrats such as Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
Weiser told The Denver Post he had planned to be out knocking on doors again Wednesday because “recalls are appropriate for when you’ve got someone who is incompetent, corrupt or acting out of step with how you might reasonably expect them to act. Tom Sullivan’s none of those things. He’s a model public servant who deserves to be applauded, not recalled.”
The lawmaker also had significant help from national groups. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee dropped almost $ 100,000 to fight the recall and helped organize what it described as a “grassroots program that knocked on more than 15,000 doors.” That’s in addition to $ 100,000 Everytown for Gun Safety announced Tuesday morning, and additional money and assistance from Giffords and Moms Demand Action.
Sullivan became a target for gun rights advocates after he helped lead the effort this year to pass an extreme risk protection law. Also known as a “red- flag” law, it will give judges the ability to remove firearms from people they determine to be a danger to themselves or others starting in 2020.
Conservatives successfully recalled two Democratic state lawmakers in 2013 for their votes on gun control measures and pressured another into resigning.
The Sullivan recall, however, divided the Colorado GOP.
Cole Wist, the Republican incumbent who lost the District 37 seat to Sullivan in 2018, opposed the special election, as did campaign strategists who worried that a failed recall attempt in what has been traditionally a swing seat could solidify Democratic control over it.
“This gives Rep. Sullivan and the Democrats a victory,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado GOP chairman. “Clearly, it was unwise to start this fight.”
Wadhams said he thinks recalls have a place in Colorado’s political process, but they need to be “well thought out.” And he isn’t convinced it’s a good idea for state party leaders to wade into the process before one gets on the ballot because it makes any failed attempt look like it’s a failure of the GOP.
He doesn’t think voters will necessarily remember this recall in November 2020, but the short- term effects are victory laps for Colorado Democrats and national gun safety groups.
“They’ve always seemed to think that recalls were the best arrow in their quiver, and I don’t think that it’s true anymore,” said Matt McGovern, executive director of a Democratic group called House Majority Project. “I think we’ve figured out how to stop them.”