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Colorado Recall Elections

5K views 30 replies 11 participants last post by  dewittdj 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Current figures:

Recall Results 2013

Ballot Issue State Senate 3 - Recall Giron
No 68.9% (477)

Yes 31.0% (215)
Updated 55 minutes ago

Ballot Issue State Senate 11 - Recall Morse

70% reporting

Yes 52.1% (6,751)

No 47.8% (6,186)

Updated 1 hour, 13 minutes ago
 
#7 ·
Hopefully this wakes up the sheeple to realize that they have the power to remove dead beat legislatures who don't follow the will of their constituents!! Hopefully this also puts the fear in the legislatures that they aren't omnipotent and realize they are representatives of the people not their party or own self interest!! I won't hold my breath... :disgusted: :disgusted:
 
#8 ·
I just hope other reps elected officials in other states take this as a warning that they represent their constituents and if they go out on their own we wont stand for it.
 
#12 ·
SSSU said:
Car Knocker said:
Both are gone, Morse by a 1.9% margin and Giron by a 13% margin. Giron was in a heavily Democratic district, by the way.
Evidence of the Democratic-40%?
They're all blue-collar miners and such...which are often pro-RKBA democrats.

In any case, I hope the door hits them hard on the way out!
 
#13 ·
bltdonahue said:
They're all blue-collar miners and such...which are often pro-RKBA democrats.

In any case, I hope the door hits them hard on the way out!
I am confused. It appears that those "blue-collar miners" and "pro-RKBA democrats" would likely be among the 40 percent of Democrats who have firearms in their households. Wouldn't they likely have voted FOR the recall of their anti-gun legislators? If so, why fault the gun-owning Democrats who join others to recall the legislators by saying that you "hope the door hits them hard on the way out"?

Just wondering.
 
#14 ·
SSSU said:
bltdonahue said:
They're all blue-collar miners and such...which are often pro-RKBA democrats.

In any case, I hope the door hits them hard on the way out!
I am confused. It appears that those "blue-collar miners" and "pro-RKBA democrats" would likely be among the 40 percent of Democrats who have firearms in their households. Wouldn't they likely have voted FOR the recall of their anti-gun legislators? If so, why fault the gun-owning Democrats who join others to recall the legislators by saying that you "hope the door hits them hard on the way out"?

Just wondering.
Im guessing it was the legislators who he was saying he hopes the door hits on the way out. Not the voters
 
#15 ·
gravedancer said:
Im guessing it was the legislators who he was saying he hopes the door hits on the way out. Not the voters
Ah, I agree. This is worse than when the college-student-turned-Colorado-Democratic-Party-volunteer was found to be the vandal who smashed windows at the CDP office. Colorado Democrats are their own worst enemy. Hehe.
 
#16 ·
bltdonahue said:
They're all blue-collar miners and such...which are often pro-RKBA democrats.
Which again highlights some of the dangers of shifting demographics in places like Utah and Colorado.

In this case, the voters were pro-gun enough, and the legislature went so far over the edge as to suffer backlash.

But notice that the voters did vote for democrats in the last election. And those democrats voted for democrat leadership in the Colorado legislature. That leadership then determines the agenda and has power to push their agenda.

Here locally, whatever Matheson may say--or actually personally believe--about RKBA (and frankly, I think the only thing he really believes is that he likes being a member of congress), he is a reliable vote for Pelosi or whatever other radically anti-RKBA candidate his party runs for leadership position.

Back to Colorado, the recall may shift the Colorado Democrat party back away from attacking RKBA, just as the 1994 congressional elections motivated national democrats to dial back their rhetoric on attacking RKBA. But does anyone here expect to see the Colorado Democrat Party leading the charge to reverse the anti-RKBA laws passed while they had the majority?

The citizens and especially the gun owners in Colorado will suffer significantly for the mistake of voting for gun grabbers and members of a party that is generally hostile to RKBA. I predict it will take significant time, energy, and money to reverse the most recent State level infringements of RKBA. Save for the bad laws being passed, those same resources could have, instead, been spent advancing RKBA rather than having to reclaim ground that should never have been lost.

Would that both major parties were supportive of RKBA. Admittedly the GOP is FAR from perfect. But as a host of Obama's actions show, as we see in Colorado, as Biden and Pelosi and company keep making clear, whatever the church going, union membership, and/or blue dogs may feel about RKBA and guns, when the Democrat party gets power and starts to feel secure, it will attack RKBA in whatever ways it thinks it can sustain.

Charles
 
#17 ·
bagpiper said:
...Would that both major parties were supportive of RKBA. Admittedly the GOP is FAR from perfect. But as a host of Obama's actions show, as we see in Colorado, as Biden and Pelosi and company keep making clear, whatever the church going, union membership, and/or blue dogs may feel about RKBA and guns, when the Democrat party gets power and starts to feel secure, it will attack RKBA in whatever ways it thinks it can sustain.
Mostly agreed, but let's admit that the Publican Party twice gave us Publican President George W. Bush who said that he would sign an extension of the so-called assault-weapons ban, and close the so-called gun-show loophole. I would say that the promise was a little more egregious than a vote for Minority Leader Pelosi (horrifying as it is) and much worse than "far from perfect." I believe that most of the Colorado Democratic 40-percent who own firearms either chose not to vote or voted for the recalls yesterday; at least they didn't rally and defeat the recalls. So, I believe that my assessment is accurate. Can we say that most of the Publican 55-percent would do similarly if the recalls were about two Publican legislators?
 
#18 ·
Hopefully this put all the Colorado legislators on notice, and they will all be up for re-election after the next session. It will be interesting to see if they do try to overturn those laws. If not, the next election could be REAL interesting. Also, I'd love it if someone video taped their "walk of shame" as they leave their offices for the last time!
 
#19 ·
SSSU said:
Mostly agreed, but let's admit that the Publican Party twice gave us Publican President George W. Bush who said that he would sign an extension of the so-called assault-weapons ban, and close the so-called gun-show loophole.
Who are these "Publican"s you write of? Are there Pharisees as well? I didn't know we were getting Biblical.

I know of Democrats and Republicans along with Libertarians and other third parties, and while not perfect, do try to avoid stooping to name calling. May I request that same courtesy from you? GOP will suffice as a non-offense nickname as will simply "Rs" if the goal is to find abbreviations.

And frankly, W was not much liked among much of the conservative right, except in comparison to the Democrats who ran against him.

This in contrast to the unmitigated love of many on the left for Clinton who also had very weak Republican candidates run against him.

SSSU said:
I would say that the promise was a little more egregious than a vote for Minority Leader Pelosi (horrifying as it is) and much worse than "far from perfect."
Exactly how much political capital did W put into pushing gun control? He said he'd sign it if it made it to his desk. It didn't, and I don't recall him doing much to push it. Indeed, there are multiple ways to view his statement. On the one hand, he didn't forcefully oppose an extension of the ban or closing of the private sale law. On the other hand, he didn't give congressional members any cover or license to vote for a bad bill knowing the president would veto it.

IOW, while the promise of a presidential veto can act to erode support for a bill, it can also act to embolden some to vote for a bill they might not if they figured it was likely going to go into effect based on their vote.

I don't read minds and so I don't know W's intentions. What I do know is that the ban on scarey looking guns was allowed to expire and there was no law passed requiring private sales to go through government background checks.

Let's compare that to the Democrat who followed W. Obama started his first term with an EO ending the sale of used military brass to the private, commercial reloading market. He has now issued an EA that bans reimportation of "military grade weapons" sold to foreign governments. This primary affects WWII era M1 Garands sold to Korea in large numbers and popular among collectors who have obtained them largely through the civilian marksmanship program. He is also proposing new rules make it more difficult and costly to obtain suppressors and short barreled rifles. Coupled with these is a rules change to impose new and intrusive background checks those using trusts for ownership of full autos, suppressors, SBRs, etc. In between he and Biden have actually put a lot of weight and capital behind reinstating and greatly expand the ban on scarey guns. Not merely saying he'd sign it if it reaches his desk, but real efforts to get it passed congress. He worked to cut funding for the armed pilots program which I'm told by a commercial pilot neighbor is currently suspended. We might consider "Fast and Furious" which at best was grossly incompetent, and one doesn't need much tinfoil to start to believe it might well have been designed to bolster public support for more restrictions on our RKBA. And the registration requirement imposed on those living in "border States" who buy multiple guns at one time.

SSSU said:
I believe that most of the Colorado Democratic 40-percent who own firearms either chose not to vote or voted for the recalls yesterday; at least they didn't rally and defeat the recalls. So, I believe that my assessment is accurate. Can we say that most of the Publican 55-percent would do similarly if the recalls were about two Publican legislators?
Given the fairly narrow margins, I would guess that most Democrats who voted, voted against the recall. I simply don't see Republicans voting to retain a Democrat legislator. Of course, it is also safe to say that low turnout benefited the recall efforts. Since there is zero evidence that gun owning Democrats voted against their party's candidates in the recall, what Republican voters would do in a similar situation is kind of a silly and childish deflection. But there is some history to suggest that Republican voters are even more likely to withdraw support from their candidates than Democrat voters are from theirs. In fact, the fickleness of the GOP voters is one reason the Democrats often fare so well. We have never managed to figure out how to make "no enemies to the left" (or right) work for us. The Democrats are masters at sticking together, or at least (almost) never speaking ill of one of their own.

HW Bush caused quite a number of GOP voters to sit out his second election with his broken "read my lips" promise about no new taxes. Dole's decades of wheeling and dealing with our rights and his allowing the '94 gun ban to go through didn't help him with GOP turnout either. Romney seems to have suffered from some lower than desired turnout among the GOP faithful and along with evangelical concerns about his personal religious affiliation, it is safe to say that gun owning (along with pro-life) republicans were among those who had a hard time trusting that his conservative conversion was really about a road to Damascus rather than the road to Des Moines.

Locally, GOP delegates booed Gov. Leavitt to a standstill when he suggested "doing something" about guns in the GOP State organization convention following Columbine. Lacking any credible competition, he was forced into a primary against a complete nobody as punishment for not being solid on RKBA.

I think it was growing defections to the Libertarian, Constitution, IAP, and other such solidly pro-RKBA parties among the GOP grassroots that lead the legislature to change election law to prohibit "fusion candidates" in about '98 or so.

So I think a very strong case can be made that pro-RKBA republican voters are willing to withdraw support from GOP candidates or incumbents who attack RKBA. They do so, even though there are no credible/winnable alternatives to support in most cases.

OTOH, Democrats tend to be far more supportive anti-RKBA Democrat candidates even when there are very good pro-RKBA alternatives. While I'm grateful there are democrats who can be pushed too far on guns and act to restrain what seems to be the general hatred of the Democrat party for my RKBA, in most cases it seems that guns and RKBA simply are not an important enough issue for many democrat voters to make decisions on. For most gun owning Democrats, it seems, other issues tend to be a higher priority than RKBA. I think that is less true among GOP gun owners.

I've never suggested there are not pro-RKBA democrats. Though I defy anyone to point out any solidly pro-RKBA democrats sitting in the current Utah Legislature. We used to have a few: Dmitrich and Ed Mayne always come to mind. Which Democrat in the Utah legislature today has even a decent, much less solid voting record on our RKBA?

My thesis is that at the current time, the Democrat party remains largely hostile to RKBA and because of the way leadership is affected by party affiliation, voting for even a pro-RKBA democrat is likely to be voting to advance an anti-RKBA agenda in many legislative bodies.

Charles
 
#20 ·
bagpiper said:
...Who are these "Publican"s you write of? Are there Pharisees as well? I didn't know we were getting Biblical.
Nah, just a kidding kind of nudge about your references to the "Democrat Party." It shows merely that I can abbreviate with the best of them. But, maybe we should speak in Biblical terms, it might confuse and unhinge a few readers. Hehe.

bagpiper said:
...Given the fairly narrow margins, I would guess that most Democrats who voted, voted against the recall. [...] Since there is zero evidence that gun owning Democrats voted against their party's candidates in the recall[.] [...] The Democrats are masters at sticking together, or at least (almost) never speaking ill of one of their own.
In a Democratic district like Giron's which enjoys a 47-percent Democratic plurality to just 23 percent Republican (not to mention Morse's district with 34 percent Democratic and 28 percent Republican), the lack of a rejection of the recall effort suggests otherwise.
 
#21 ·
bagpiper said:
Given the fairly narrow margins, I would guess that most Democrats who voted, voted against the recall. I simply don't see Republicans voting to retain a Democrat legislator. Of course, it is also safe to say that low turnout benefited the recall efforts. Since there is zero evidence that gun owning Democrats voted against their party's candidates in the recall, what Republican voters would do in a similar situation is kind of a silly and childish deflection. But there is some history to suggest that Republican voters are even more likely to withdraw support from their candidates than Democrat voters are from theirs. In fact, the fickleness of the GOP voters is one reason the Democrats often fare so well. We have never managed to figure out how to make "no enemies to the left" (or right) work for us. The Democrats are masters at sticking together, or at least (almost) never speaking ill of one of their own.
Giron was elected in 2010 with 22,834 votes. She was recalled with 19,365. Party affiliation for Senate District 3: Democrats, 14,633; Republicans, 10,329; and unaffiliated, 6,867. Media reports indicate that 20 percent of the voters who signed petitions to recall Senator Giron were Democrats. I think it's safe to say that a significant number of Democrats voted for Giron's recall. Not all Republicans approved of the recall effort and voted against the recall, if voter interviews in the media are to be believed.
 
#23 ·
Car Knocker said:
Giron was elected in 2010 with 22,834 votes. She was recalled with 19,365. Party affiliation for Senate District 3: Democrats, 14,633; Republicans, 10,329; and unaffiliated, 6,867. Media reports indicate that 20 percent of the voters who signed petitions to recall Senator Giron were Democrats. I think it's safe to say that a significant number of Democrats voted for Giron's recall. Not all Republicans approved of the recall effort and voted against the recall, if voter interviews in the media are to be believed.
Pretty sure I'm not understanding your numbers. Where did you get them?

And what do the voter affiliations represent? Total voters registered in the district? Or those that turned out?

I need some more details and information to understand what you are trying to convey.

Thanks.

Charles
 
#24 ·
bagpiper said:
Car Knocker said:
Giron was elected in 2010 with 22,834 votes. She was recalled with 19,365. Party affiliation for Senate District 3: Democrats, 14,633; Republicans, 10,329; and unaffiliated, 6,867. Media reports indicate that 20 percent of the voters who signed petitions to recall Senator Giron were Democrats. I think it's safe to say that a significant number of Democrats voted for Giron's recall. Not all Republicans approved of the recall effort and voted against the recall, if voter interviews in the media are to be believed.
Pretty sure I'm not understanding your numbers. Where did you get them?

And what do the voter affiliations represent? Total voters registered in the district? Or those that turned out?

I need some more details and information to understand what you are trying to convey.

Thanks.

Charles
The numbers were gathered from various media and gov't sites. Party affiliation refers to registered voters in Senate District 3. I'm just saying that a significant number of Democrats in this district voted to oust a fellow Democrat...nothing more...nothing less. It was just a matter of interest to me that she was recalled with about 85% of the vote total that put her in office in 2010.
 
#25 ·
Car Knocker said:
The numbers were gathered from various media and gov't sites. Party affiliation refers to registered voters in Senate District 3. I'm just saying that a significant number of Democrats in this district voted to oust a fellow Democrat...nothing more...nothing less. It was just a matter of interest to me that she was recalled with about 85% of the vote total that put her in office in 2010.
I'm still not sure how we arrive at the conclusion that a lot of democrats voted to oust her.''

The numbers you provided for party affiliation add up to 31,829 voters total. ABC 7 in Denver reports that 34,556 voted in Giron's recall and that 56% (19,351) voted for the recall. So I have to assume the numbers you provided for affiliation are based on those casting ballots, not the number registered.

For grins and giggle let's see what the numbers might tell us assuming that the percentage of registered voters you provided is about accurate. Let's assume that 85% of republicans and 75% of the unaffiliated who voted, voted for the recall. That would be 8780 republicans and 5150 unaffiliated for a total of 13,930 non-democrats voting for recall. If we used the total vote count as 31,829, then the 56% voting for recall would be 17,824 total voting for recall. That would leave 3894 Democrats voting for recall, or 26.6%.

If we assume something like 90% of republicans and 80% of independents voting for recall, then the percentage of democrats voting for recall drops to 20%.

Assume 95% of republicans voted for the recall with 85% of independents voting for recall, and the percentage of democrats voting for recall drops to less than 15%.

Of course, the math works out just as well to assume that 56% of republicans, independents, and democrats all voted for recall. In such a case, I think the math would not match what most of us have experienced regarding partisan politics.

I would expect the real numbers are probably around my second set of assumptions, with about 20% of democrats voting for recall, with 90% of republicans and 80% of independents.

Here is my reasoning. By Dave's own admission, only about 40% of democrats own guns. Among the gun owners I know (off this list), only about 1/2 have RKBA as their top, hot button issue. That seems to be about the number who support RKBA even for scarey looking guns and normal sized magazines. Toss in usual partisan concerns among those who register with a party and I think that the 20% number is the most likely, barring scientific polling or other evidence to the contrary.

Toss in the usual partisan issues for republican voters on the flip side, plus a much higher rate of gun ownership and 90% voting for recall seems entirely plausible.

If we assume that unaffiliated voters don't have rank partisan motivations to the same level as those who officially affliate with one party or the other, and considering that those with libertarian positions of being pro-gun and pro-legalization of drugs might be among those most likely to decline to register with either party, 80% support for recall looks reasonable there as well.

What is most interesting to me is that if your numbers on the affiliation of voters is accurate, it looks like democrats turned out in numbers about proportional to their total registration in the county, as did republicans. It looks like about a 59-41 split Democrat-GOP (ignoring unaffiliated), which is about the makeup of the district if I've not misunderstood other news reports. IOW, neither party was more or less likely to stay home and the vote looks just about as we'd expect given the issue of guns and partisan concerns.

Or put another way, if we start with a certain set of assumptions, a fine case can be made as to why that assumption makes sense. :D

But either way, I don't see evidence to indicate that democrats turned on one of their own in any kind of large numbers.

Charles
 
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