Colorado Democratic state Sen. Evie Hudak resigns rather than face recall vote

Resigning the day before Thanksgiving was apparently an attempt at minimizing the negative publicity for the Democratic party, but, more importantly, her resignation allows Democrats to keep her seat without a new election and a committee of county Democrats to appoint her successor.  From the Denver Post:

Her announcement comes as proponents of the recall were wrapping up a petition drive in which they needed to submit about 18,900 valid signatures to the secretary of state's office. If enough signatures had been ruled valid, Hudak would have been the third Colorado lawmaker to face a recall election this year because of her support for tougher gun laws. . . . 

Hudak won a tough re-election bid in 2012, winning her northern Jefferson County seat by fewer than 600 votes over Republican Lang Sias. Conventional wisdom said she wouldn't survive a recall if it were put to a vote.

If that happened, Democrats would lose control of the Colorado Senate; with Morse and Giron gone and Republicans taking their seats, Democrats now only have an 18-17 edge.  . . .

Gun-rights activists in Colorado and nationally ripped Hudak for her inartful questioning of a rape victim during a hearing in March on a bill to ban weapons on campus. The woman told lawmakers that had she been permitted to use her concealed-carry permit and carry her gun on campus, the e incident may have ended differently.  . . . 

Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper suggests that gun control groups stay out of newest state Senate recall

With control of the Colorado state Senate at stake, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is suggesting that national gun-control groups stay away from new recall battle.  In the recalls this last September, some claim that those pushing the recalls were outspent massively by gun control groups.

Victor’s group had virtually no money — even going so far as to spray paint their own yard signs to save money. They were outspent by the groups backed by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 10 or 20 times. . . .

From USA Today:

"Colorado is a state that people like to be themselves and solve their own problems," the Democratic governor said in an interview with Capital Download, USA TODAY's weekly video newsmaker series. "They don't really like outside organizations meddling in their affairs, and maybe the NRA gets a pass on that.

"But (it is) probably not a bad idea" for gun-control groups, such as the one established by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to curb their efforts if gun-rights activists collect enough signatures to force a recall vote on state Sen. Evie Hudak, a two-term Democrat from a suburban district north of Denver, he said.

If Republicans succeed in gaining her seat, Democrats would lose their 18-17 edge in the state Senate.

Petition organizers have until Dec. 3 to collect 18,900 signatures. "They're well-funded and there's a lot of energy behind this, a lot of frustration," Hickenlooper said. "I'm going to guess it's probably 50-50" that they will be able to get the recall vote on the ballot.

But, he noted, "I didn't think they'd get enough signatures for the first two." . . .

New recall effort in Colorado against State Senator Evie Hudak, control of Colorado state senate hangs in the balance

A new recall effort in Colorado has just started against Democratic State Senator Evie Hudak.  They have just over 8 weeks to get the necessary signatures, but the people behind this effort are the same ones who spearheaded the two successful recent recalls in Colorado.  

Compared to the other two state Senators who were recalled, this district is not overwhelmingly Democratic, but actually pretty balanced.

SD19 - Hudak (D) - 48%-45% (48%-46%) Unfortunately this district changed little, Democrats tried a couple different ways to shore up Evie Hudak, but Carrera was having none of it, it remains Westminster/Arvada and a pure tossup seat for an incumbent who barely won in 2008, not ideal to say the least. . . .

By contrast: 

SD3 - Giron (D) - 56%-39% (56%-39%)  Same as before, Pueblo and Pueblo West, 44% Hispanic, safe Democratic. . . .
SD11 - Morse (D) - 52%-41% (50%-42%) The Democratic stronghold in El Paso County, this district takes in almost every Democratic precinct there is.  The Commission's local Republican member Bob Loevy agreed that Dems deserve one seat, and this is it! . . .

In case you don't remember, Senator Evie Hudak was the one who reprimanded Amanda Collins during her testimony before the Colorado state legislature (see about 2:18 into the video).  From Investors Business Daily:

. . . Collins was raped at gunpoint in a University of Nevada-Reno parking garage in October 2007. Nevada law prohibited her from carrying a gun on the campus, but her attacker had one. She was raped 50 feet away from the campus police department office. Her attacker was James Biela, a serial rapist who raped two other women and murdered another. 

He attacked her at gunpoint in a gun-free zone. At the time of the attack, Collins had a concealed weapons permit but not her firearm due to university policies prohibiting carrying concealed weapons on campus. Just such a gun-free zone policy is why the Aurora, Colo., shooter chose the theater he did. 

As she ended her compelling testimony, she asked the committee, "How does rendering me defenseless protect you against a violent crime?" 

In response, Democrat Sen. Evie Hudak lectured her that "statistics are not on your side." She said that Collins had rudimentary training in martial arts, yet the rapist overpowered her and therefore could have taken her gun if she had one. . . . 

Collins told the condescending Hudak, "I know without a doubt in my mind, at some point, I would have been able to stop my attack by using my firearm. He already had a weapon of his own; he didn't need mine." 

Salazar had pompously responded to Collins' story and advocacy of armed defense by saying, "It's why we have call boxes; it's why we have safe zones; it's why we have the whistles; because you just don't know who you're gonna be shooting at." 

Women, Salazar opined, "couldn't possibly know if they are in danger. And you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone's been following you around or if you feel like you're in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop ... pop around at somebody." . . . .

From the Denver Post:

In her Tuesday statement, Hudak said: "Amanda was reflecting on her experience and asked the committee if having a gun would have made her safer. I realize now it was a rhetorical question. Amid this emotional testimony, my goal was to share research data about the increased danger of having a gun in an assault." 

Collins on Tuesday said Hudak's comments were shocking and disturbed her deeply.
"I had a hard time falling asleep because I couldn't stop thinking about what she said to me," Collins said. 

After the hearing, Hudak apologized to Collins, but Collins questions the senator's motive for doing so. 

"I don't know how genuine it really was," Collins said. . . . 

BTW, Hudak's statistical claim is completely wrong.

"I just want to say that, actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun," Hudak said during the hearing. "And, chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you." . . .

The National Crime Victimization Survey clearly shows that having a gun is the safest course of action for victims confronted by a criminal and that is particularly true for women and those who are weaker physically.  The claim people will have their guns used against them is usually based on a misreading of police data.  It is often pointed out that up to 13% of officers who are killed are killed with their own gun (it is also as low as zero percent).  There are a couple problems with that: 1) The right comparison isn't the percent of officers who are killed who are killed with their own gun. The comparison should be the percent of officers who are assaulted who are killed with their own guns.  Take the numbers for 2009.  Out of 57,268 officers who were assaulted, one was killed with his own gun.  If you look at assaults with injuries, it is still just one out of 14,985 assaults.  2) Police have a much more difficult job than civilians.  If you take a concealed carry course, the point is that you have a gun to keep the criminal away from you.  Police can't just brandish a gun and watch the criminal run away.  They have to be willing to come into physical contact with the criminal and that is where the real problems arise.

My take on the previous recalls is available here.

Newest piece from National Review Online: "Democrats knew what they wanted in Colorado, but they overreached"

From the beginning of my piece:

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post declared the recall elections of two powerful state senators in Colorado a national “referendum on guns.” Indeed, the defeat of state-senate president John Morse and fellow state senator Angela Giron will cause some Democrats to rethink their push on gun control. 

But of course, many Democrats have reacted by shrugging off the results. Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has dismissed the losses as the result of “voter suppression, pure and simple” (orchestrated by the National Rifle Association and the Koch brothers, of course). Mark Glaze, executive director of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, predicted that the victory by gun owners would be short-lived at best and that gun-control legislators would take comfort in knowing that his group “will have their back.” 

In reality, it is hard not to appreciate what was accomplished. The difficulties facing the recall were overwhelming: . . .

UPDATE: Even the some people who support gun ownership at the Daily Kos have a useful discussion of some of the false claims about the recall election.

UPDATE: Here is Angela Giron's continued attempt to claim that she lost because of voter suppression (available here)

FINAL RESULTS NOW IN ON BOTH COLORADO RECALLS: BOTH DEMOCRATIC SENATORS RECALLED OVER GUN CONTROL VOTES, HISTORIC, UDATED

Remember newspaper headlines such as this in the Washington Post: "Colorado recall becoming referendum on guns"

Angela Giron's race was supposed to be the toughest, but here 12 percentage point loss would have to be considered a landslide.  Morse has already conceded his defeat.  Giron will soon.  See my earlier post on massive campaign spending by gun control advocates available here.
Both Morse and Giron were powerful Democrats in the state.  Morse was the state Senate President.  Giron was Chair of State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee and Vice-Chair of the very important Agriculture, Natural Resources, & Energy Committee.  She also served on the Water Resources Review Committee.

As of 12:37 AM EDT, the results were:



From the Denver Post:

But it wasn't just the NRA that warned Democrats about messing with gun rights.Sen. Lois Tochtrop, an Adams County Democrat and longtime Second Amendment activist, opposed five of the seven guns bills initially introduced in the session, including a lightning-rod proposal by Morse.
That proposal would have assigned liability for assault-style weapon damages to manufacturers and sellers, but Morse killed it at the 11th-hour because he didn't have the votes to pass it through the Democratic-controlled Senate.
"I feel like all these gun bills have done — to quote the last words in the movie 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' — is to awaken a sleeping giant," Tochtrop said during the debate.
Awaken they did. . . .

See also this:

Because the turnout in Morse's election in 2010 was so low — a race where he probably would have lost had there not been a Libertarian candidate — no one was surprised when that recall effort succeeded.
It was a different story in Pueblo [Giron's district], a heavily Democratic district, where three plumbers armed with laptops linked to a state database not only collected enough valid signatures but had a low number thrown out. . . . 

Just to see how hard it was to get these recalls made, consider: to get the recall 25 percent of all the votes cast in the previous election.

7,178 signatures were required on the petitions to recall Morse, that is compared to the 17,845 who voted in this recall (40%).  11,285 valid signatures were required against Giron, compared to 34,556 who voted in the recall (32%).

In addition to this high threshold, they were outspent massively by Bloomberg. 

They were outspent by the groups backed by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 10 or 20 times. . . .

Some interesting facts about Recall elections.
Recalls against legislative leaders, such as Morse, tend to be particularly tough to win.  Here are some very interesting facts about recall elections from Joshua Spivak at The Recall Elections Blog.  Prior to Morse, there have only been four recall elections against legislative leaders in the US, and the legislative leader was retained in three of those four races.  In Colorado recall elections for other offices, officials have survived at better than 50 percent rate.  These recalls represent only the 37th and 38th recall votes of state legislators in US history, with the success rate prior to these two votes being exactly 50 percent.

How heavily Democratic were these districts?
To get an idea of how heavily Democratic these two districts are, one only needs to turn to the Daily Kos:

Giron's Senate District 3: 56% Democrat - 39% Republican, 44% Hispanic, rated as "Safe Democratic"
Morse's Senate District 11: 50% Democrat - 42% Republican, As the Daily Kos describes the district: "The Democratic stronghold in El Paso County, this district takes in almost every Democratic precinct there is.  The Commission's local Republican member Bob Loevy agreed that Dems deserve one seat, and this is it!" 

From Colorado Peak Politics:

Giron’s recall was spearheaded by a plumber from Pueblo named Victor Head. His group Pueblo Freedom and Rights and their 100% volunteer effort succeeded in gathering enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot, with a signature validity rate of 94%.
By comparison, the professional effort to get the billion dollar tax hike on November’s ballot cost over $750,000 and had a 54% validity rate. Victor’s group had virtually no money — even going so far as to spray paint their own yard signs to save money. They were outspent by the groups backed by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 10 or 20 times.
But, in the end, Bloomberg’s billions weren’t any match for Victor Head’s voters. . . .
These two races are huge losses for Democrats. According to an analysis by the liberal Mother Jones, Obama won Morse’s district by 21% in 2012. He won Giron’s by 19%. That’s a victory for conservatives deep in Democratic territory.
That should shock the political world. . . .

At least in Giron's district, there was a strong Democratic turnout.

In El Paso County, Democrats have gained some ground. Last week, Republicans accounted for 41 percent of votes cast, but the GOP vote now is at 38 percent, according to figures released about 6:30 p.m. Still, Republicans have the lead. 

In Giron's district in Pueblo County, where Democrats comprise 47 percent of all registered voters and Republicans just 23 percent, Democrats have the vote lead, but there's a catch. Pueblo is a blue-collar, blue-dog Democratic town and 20 percent of the voters who signed petitions to recall the senator were Democrats. 

Democrats reported that between the two Senate districts, they had about 350 volunteers working in shifts and expected to knock on more than 23,000 doors before the polls close at 7 p.m. . . .

Shortly before 6:30 p.m., the El Paso County clerk reported that a total of 17,272 voters had marked ballots since early voting began.  The latest El Paso figures show vote total by party affiliation as: Republicans, 6,647; Democrats, 5,784; and unaffiliated, 4,580. . . . 

The party breakdown in Senate District 3 is as follows: Democrats, 14,633; Republicans, 10,329; and unaffiliated, 6,867. . . . 

From  Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics:

part of what occurred was that GOP turnout was unusually strong for an off-year special election. The “recall Morse” line received 9,000 votes, while the “recall Giron” effort drew 19,000 votes. (Mitt Romney received 26,000 votes in Giron’s district, and 19,000 in Morse’s.) In Giron’s district in particular, this was a surprisingly high turnout for an off-year special election.
For that matter, Morse’s GOP opponent received 13,500 votes in 2010, while Giron’s GOP opponent won 20,000 votes in that year. In other words, despite the intervening redistricting cycle, which helped Democrats somewhat, GOP turnout in this special election equaled midterm turnout in Giron’s district, and came close in Morse’s. . . .

His conclusion is interesting:

I do think that there’s one area where these recalls really are important. After the failure of the Senate gun-control bill, it was fashionable to argue, a la the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky: “You cannot oppose the will of 90 percent of the public and expect no consequences.” 

It appears that you can. For one thing, that 90 percent number represents something of a best case result drawn from a best-case question wording; actual public support for, say, universal background checks is somewhat lower (though clearly still a majority). Perhaps, as I explained in April, the energy is all on the side of the voters who oppose gun control. For example, while Americans might support universal background checks in the abstract, in practice they just don’t care that much about it. Those who oppose them, however, care a lot. . . .

Democrats aren't taking these defeats well.  Morse attacked the Pueblo recall organizer as an "unemployed plumber." In response, Victor Head, the plumber in question, noted: 

Other information
Reminder: Giron and some of her supporters framed this recall as being racist.

“I know it’s partially about me being a Latina and being in this position of authority,” said Giron. . . .

Some called Giron on this claim, such as Colorado Peak Politics:

Carefully ignored is the fact that three other Hispanics, both Republican and Democrat, male and female, opposed a number of gun bills this session.
Republican Latina Clarice Navarro opposed all the gun bills.
Democrat Latinos Ed Vigil and Leroy Garcia opposed the Mag Ban, and Vigil also opposed the background check bill.
No recall campaigns have been initiated against any of those Hispanic politicians. Not that such inconvenient facts got in the way of Giron shamelessly playing the race card. . . .

Now look at the picture of the next state Senator from Pueblo, George Rivera.

With 62% of vote counted, Colorado state Sen Angela Giron down 60 to 40%, 12:10 AM EDT

Despite massive donations by billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Billionaire Philanthropist Eli Broad, both state Senators John Morse and Angela Giron look likely to be defeated.  The NRA donated $361,700 to the campaigns, but Bloomberg and Broad alone donated a total of $600,000.  As of 12:10 AM EDT, the results were:

More information on campaign spending as of August 29th filings is available here:

According to the latest filings, Pueblo United for Angela has raised $825,400. That's an increase of $239,400 from the reports released last week. A Whole Lot of People for John Morse has raised $658,230, up about $52,000 from last week's report. . . .

Mayor Michael Bloomberg donates $350,000 to fight Colorado recall elections over gun control votes, massive donation compared to recent campaigns

In state Senator John Morse's 2010 race, he had total contributions of $163,972.  In 2010, Angela Giron raised $68,710.  But if the Democrats loose it won't be for a lack of money.  From Fox News:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has thrown $350,000 behind an effort to fight the recall of two Colorado Democratic legislators for their votes in favor of sweeping new gun control laws. 

Campaign finance paperwork filed Tuesday and obtained by KDVR.com showed that Bloomberg wrote a personal check to Taxpayers for Responsible Democracy, the group fighting the recalls targeting Colorado Springs Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron, of Pueblo.  

The National Rifle Association has contributed more than $108,600 to try to unseat the Democratic incumbents. Most of the money has gone toward radio, Internet, and cable ads, as well as billboard advertising. 

But backers of Morse and Giron have given bigger donations, most notably Bloomberg's contribution. 

Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns group has pushed for more restrictions on firearms in states nationwide, including Colorado. Billionaire Philanthropist Eli Broad also contributed $250,000 to the Democrats' campaigns. . . .

Thus just between Bloomberg and Broad, those two individuals have contributed 2.6 times more money than they spent on their campaigns in 2010.  But this isn't all the money that they have gotten.  The liberal "We Can Do Better Colorado" campaign raised $395,000, of which two $100,000 donations came from the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

I have also gotten this type of email from left wing groups multiple times.

New Quinnipiac poll of Colorado voter shows most oppose state's new gun control laws

From Quinnipiac University:

. . . All voters oppose 54 - 40 percent the stricter new gun control laws which led to the recall effort. Democrats support the stricter laws 78 - 16 percent, while opposition is 89 - 7 percent among Republicans and 56 - 39 percent among independent voters. Women are divided on the stricter laws 48 - 45 percent, with men opposed 64 - 33 percent.  

"With wide partisan and gender divisions, Colorado voters oppose the state's stricter new gun control laws, but they don't want to recall State Senate President John Morse or Sen. Angela Giron because they supported these laws," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Philosophically, voters don't want a recall election every time they disagree with a legislator. They'd rather deal with it every four years." . . .

There is some disconnect between the individual parts of the gun laws and the overall feelings that people have to the new laws.  Could it be that while they support background checks in principle, the fees for transfers aren't popular?

Colorado voters support 82 - 16 percent requiring background checks for all gun buyers. Support is strong among all groups.

Voters are divided 49 - 48 percent on a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

Colorado's new gun laws will make the state less safe, 40 percent of voters say, while 37 percent say the state will be safer and 16 percent say the laws won't make a difference.

Background checks and a limit on magazines could not have prevented the Columbine or Aurora mass killings, voters say 68 - 25 percent, and could not have reduced the number of people killed in those shootings, voters say 56 - 40 percent. . . .

Democrats and gun control advocates going all in to defeat Colorado recalls

The New York Times is running major stories painting Democrat State Senate President John Morse as a hero.  

As he prepared to vote for some of the strictest gun control measures in the country earlier this year, John Morse, a former police chief and president of the State Senate, knew he would infuriate some constituents. 

“There may be a cost for me to pay, but I am more than happy to pay it,” he said in a recent interview.   

Now, after months of gathering signatures and skirmishing in court, gun activists in Colorado, with the support of the National Rifle Association, have forced Mr. Morse and a fellow Democrat, Senator Angela Giron, into recall elections. The recall effort is seen nationally as a test of whether politicians, largely Democrats, outside big cities and deep-blue coastal states can survive the political fallout of supporting stricter gun laws. . . .

What is left out of the story is that Morse never ran for election on the gun control issue.  Of course, the New York Times would never spin this story as one where a politician broke his promises to voters and is incurring their opposition.  The NY Times also tries to spin this as something run by the NRA, again to de-emphasize the anger of the constituents.

Gun control advocates such as Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords are pushing hard to raise money to defend gun the two state senators up for recall.

Kelly and Giffords and other gun control advocates want to make this their stand.  It will be interesting to see how much inaccurate information they push out during this campaign (see here).

Meanwhile, Giffords' gun control Super PAC has brought in $6.6 million during just the first six months of 2013.  From Politico:

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords’ gun control super PAC brought in $6.6 million in the first six months of 2013, according to reports filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.
Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, which also has a tax-exempt nonprofit arm that is not required to disclose its fundraising, received $3.2 million of its total haul from small-dollar donors who gave less than $200.
Several six-figure donations, including a $250,000 check from the law firm owned by Steve and Amber Mostyn — who gave more about $5 million to Democrats in 2012 — also boosted the group. . . .

Democrat Colorado Senate President John Morse is desperately pulling up all the stops to prevent recall over his support for gun control

After the Colorado Secretary of State certified Morse's recall, Morse has gone to all sorts of lengths to stop the recall.  Hardly the type of confidence you would expect from someone who thought that he would win.  Morse wants to argue that the boilerplate petitions provided by the Secretary of State were in error.  From the Daily Caller:

. . . Morse’s attorney, Mark Grueskin, challenged the entire effort because the petitions circulated by the El Paso Freedom Defense Committee didn’t specifically mention that there would be an election if enough signatures are collected, a requirement of the state constitution.
“This isn’t some technicality or loophole,” Grueskin told Denver’s 7News. “This is a critical piece of information that the proponents of this petition decided not to impart to petition signers.”
Richard Westfall, an attorney with the Colorado Republican Party, told the Denver Post that Morse’s lawyers are misreading the constitution.
“The state constitution very much protects a citizen’s right to recall elected officials,” he’s quoted as saying. “A hyper-technical argument suggested by Sen. Morse’s attorneys would unduly limit the citizens’ rights to recall their elected officials.”
The petitions were boilerplate fill-in-the-blanks forms provided by the secretary of state’s office. The conservative Colorado Peak Politics blog points out that the language on the forms dates back to the previous secretary of state, Democrat Bernie Buescher. . . .

Colorado Senate President John Morse is pulling up all the stops to keep from facing the voters in a recall, but with only 10 percent (even according the Democrats) agreeing to take their names off the petitions, the Democrats aren't even going to be close to stopping the recall -- all these expenses are going to be for nought.

. . . "We've called several hundred people.  We are seeing about a 10 percent return," she said.  Le Lait said people sometimes sign without paying attention and that some voters have already confirmed that.
"Some people thought they were signing a petition to keep John Morse in office, some people thought they were signing a petition to support the gun laws, one woman thought she was signing a petition to impeach Barack Obama," said Le Lait.
A woman who only wished to share her first name, Ann, said she is one of thousands who signed the petition.  She also got a call from the Morse campaign.
"She goes, 'we wanted to find out do you remember signing the petition to recall John Morse?' I go yeah.  I said I signed the petition because I wanted to and I don't want my name removed," said Ann.
Organizers of the recall petition needed more than 7,100 valid signatures to force a recall election.  Last Tuesday, Colorado's Secretary of State's office verified they had the signatures needed.  In fact, they exceeded the signatures by about 3,000. . . .

Meanwhile, another Democrat state Senator is going to have to face the voters again.  From the Denver Post:

The votes cast by state Sen. Angela Giron in support of tougher gun laws now have the Pueblo lawmaker faced with a looming fall election date as organizers Monday amassed enough valid signatures in their recall effort.
Only about 6 percent of the signatures submitted in Giron's recall effort were deemed invalid by the Colorado secretary of state's office — a striking percentage that her opponents said showed strong support for their cause.
Organizers with Pueblo Freedom and Rights submitted more than 13,400 signatures to the Colorado secretary of state's office and had 12,648 verified. They needed about 11,300 verified for a recall election and outpaced that figure by about 1,300.
Giron becomes the second Democrat in less than a week — along with Senate President John Morse — who now must deal with a recall election . . . 

 The Washington Times has a story about how extreme lengths Colorado Democrats are willing to go to not face the voters.

More than 2xs as many signatures as needed turned in for Democrat Colorado State Senate President Recall over new gun regulations

Does the Democrat Colorado State Senate President John Morse really think that he is going to be able to disqualify enough signatures to keep the recall from occurring?  Mayor Bloomberg is going to be throwing in a lot of money to fight to keep Morse in office.  From Fox News:

A group of gun-rights activists seeking to oust a top Democratic state lawmaker in Colorado over the passage of strict gun control legislation on Monday turned in double the signatures needed to force a recall election.
KDVR reports the group turned in over 16,000 signatures, more than double the 7,178 valid signatures needed, to the Colorado Secretary of State's office in the effort to recall Colorado Senate President John Morse.
“This sends a strong message,” Rob Harris, who delivered three boxes full of petitions to the office, told KDVR. “We’ve obtained enough signatures to recall a state legislator for the first time in the history of Colorado.”
The Secretary of State’s office now has 15 days to determine whether enough of the signatures  are valid, and then Morse's office has another 15 days to contest the validity of the signatures.
Morse tells KDVR he is going to fight the recall effort. “We’ll go through these signatures with a fine-toothed comb,” Morse told the station. . . .

The battle is generally over whether there should be a tax on gun ownership, whether poor individuals should be priced out of being able to own guns.

Colorado State Senate President facing recall election over his support for gun control

Democrat Senate President John Morse looks almost certain to face a recall election.  If he were to lose, it would send a powerful message.  From Fox News:

. . . Morse has mounted a campaign to urge voters not to sign petitions. In an indication of the national stakes, that push is largely funded by a $20,000 contribution from a national progressive group called America Votes. The Morse campaign said the donation came through the group's local Colorado office.
The recall group's main funding comes from a $14,000 contribution from a nonprofit run by a local conservative consultant, Laura Carno. She said that contribution was made possible by some out-of-state donors.
"People in other states that are further down this road, like New York and Massachusetts, are calling up and saying `What can we do to help?"' Carno said. "This isn't what Colorado stands for."
In an interview, Morse seemed resigned to facing a recall vote after signatures are verified. He believes national gun-rights supporters are using his district to make a national statement about the political peril officials face if they take on gun control.
"That's what's going on here. They want to take out the Senate president," Morse said. . . .

TO me the issue should be framed this way: Democrats passed a tax on people obtaining guns.  They refused to place a cap on what that tax could be and they refused to exempt poor people from having that tax.  Democrats, including Morse, have to explain why they passed laws that will primarily disarm law-abiding poor people from being able to own guns, particularly those poor minorities who live in high crime urban areas.  Why don't Democrats want to allow poor blacks to defend themselves?

Recalls in Colorado for state legislators who voted for more gun control

It turns out that a tax on obtaining a gun and a limit on magazine sizes may cost a few Democratic state legislators their jobs in Colorado.  Getting signatures from 25 percent of the total vote in the last election in that district is a very difficult task.  From Fox News:

Colorado Democratic lawmakers who recently helped pass some of the toughest gun-control laws in the country now face the political backlash of recall efforts.
Two groups are targeting state Rep. Mike McLachlan and state Sens. Angela Giron, Evie Hudak and John Morse.
The Democrat-controlled legislature passed bills that ban magazines holding more than 15 rounds and require background checks for all gun transfers. They were signed into law in March by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Morse, the Senate president, pushed a more far-reaching proposal that called for holding owners, sellers and makers of assault-type weapons liable for havoc inflicted by their guns. . . .
The petition drives are being organized by the organizations Pueblo Freedom and Rights Group. They will need signatures from 25 percent of the vote in each lawmaker’s district to trigger a special election. . . .

At least for one of the state Senators they appear to be on target for the recall.  Here is part of an email that I received this morning.

I spoke to one of the guys leading the recall for Sen. Hudak this morning.  He's says they are nearly on target for a successful effort so they are heavily recruiting more volunteers to make sure they win and finish strong. . . . 

In the case of Sen. Evie Hudak 18,962 signatures are needed.  Nor is it clear that so much time and money should be spent on recalling state Representative Mike McLachlan who is term limited and has to retire in 2014.

The Denver Post lists two of these state Senators as the biggest losers of the most recent legislative session.

Sen. Evie Hudak. Similar to Salazar, the Westminster Democrat planted her feet firmly in her mouth during a hearing on the bill to ban concealed weapons on campus. Hudak told a victim of a rape who said she'd wished she'd been armed that "statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun" and that it was more likely the rapist would have used the gun on her. Though Hudak later apologized, the comments went viral and contributed to the death of the bill. It also spawned a recall petition against Hudak. Luckily for Hudak, though, the statistics are on her side when it comes to recall petitions, which are extreme longshots.
Senate President John Morse. He sponsored an ill-defined liability-for-guns bill that couldn't muster support from his own Democratic caucus, and pushed a bill to grant tax credits to low-income Coloradans that was greatly watered down in the House. Morse also backed a telecommunications regulation bill and legislation allowing for the repeal of marijuana legalization that he couldn't find enough votes for. Meanwhile, his outspoken support of gun control prompted a recall effort against him — unlikely though it may be. . . .