In the aftermath of the crime at a Colorado movie theater where 12 people were murdered, the Colorado State legislature quickly moved to adopt stricter gun laws and Senate President John Morse led that effort. But now, after his anti-gun bills were successfully passed into law, Morse faces a recall election that could turn him out of office.
On June 18, Colorado certified that the recall effort had gained enough signatures to move forward making Senator leader Morse the first legislator to ever be recalled in the state’s history.
Morse, a Democrat from Colorado Springs, has been in the legislature for seven years and for a short time was the police chief of Fountain, Colorado. He became Senate majority leader in 2009 after the former occupant of that office resigned to join the Obama administration.
Senator Morse not only supported but championed the new laws that limited ammunition magazines to 15 rounds or less and mandated that background checks be performed even for private transactions on gun sales. Morse also strongly supported several other, even stricter measures but they failed to pass.
Despite the complaints of constituents, the Senator is wholly unapologetic for his strong support of the new gun laws.
“Don’t stop, no matter what, because you’re right and the other people are wrong, and we’ve got to get this done,” Morse told CBS News.
But this stiff support for restricting citizen’s Second Amendment rights did not sit well with Laura Carno, the former banker and political consultant who, along with the El Paso Basic Freedom Defense Fund (BFDF), helped lead the recall effort.
Carno was not happy with her Senator’s refusal to listen to what she wanted done in the state capital.
“You need to listen to me, because you work for me. I got you hired and I can fire you,” Carno said.
Carno is responding to an appearance that Morse made on the Rachel Maddow show where he said that he and his fellow Senators just ignore the emails and messages from constituents urging them to vote down further anti-gun measures.
Carno and and the BFDF raised some $71,000 to fuel the petition drive for the recall effort and seem to have met their goal of 7,178 signatures having turned in more than 16,000.
Naturally the liberal groups are challenging the petitions, but if the petitions are all certified by the courts the recall election could be held only months from now.
The pro-gun forces have also gathered enough signatures to recall another state senator. 13,500 signatures to recall State Senator Angela Giron of Pueblo were also recently filed.
During her vote in favor of the gun bills, Senator Giron told Colorado media that she knew she was voting against the will of her constituents but that she didn’t care.
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