GOPUSA8 Hours Ago

Democrat target of gun control recall threatens to make petition names public

If she has to fight for her state Senate seat this summer, Pueblo lawmaker Angela Giron's first line of defense will be to scrutinize the recall petitions against her, hoping to invalidate enough voter signatures to block a special election.

"Those petitions will be public and we'll go through all the names," Giron assured her supporters at a monthly constituent meeting Wednesday.

Her critics -- local Republicans and gunrights supporters -- need the signatures of 11,200 registered voters from Senate District 3 to force a special election. Their deadline to turn in that number to the Colorado Secretary of State is Monday. That office then has 15 days to validate those signatures.

Giron, a first-term Democrat, is being targeted for supporting new limits on gun magazines (no more than 15 rounds), requiring background checks in most private gun sales and requiring gun buyers to pay for those checks.

Gun groups also want to recall state Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and they turned in petitions against him this week. But they needed fewer than 8,000 voter signatures in Morse's district.

"I've been getting calls and messages from outside Colorado expressing their support for me," Giron said. "If there is a recall election, I'll run on my record representing Southern Colorado for three years. But if the gun groups make me a poster child for recall, it wouldn't surprise me to see national groups get involved on both sides."

Her support committee, Pueblo United for Angela, showed some of that in its May 23 campaign finance report. The group had received a $35,000 donation from the Sixteen Thirty Fund in Washington, D.C.; $20,000 from a Denver group, Citizens for Integrity; and a $15,000 donation from another group, Mainstream Colorado.

In contrast, the recall committee -- Pueblo Freedom and Rights -- reported only $5,200 in contributions as of May 23.

By most measures, Giron had a successful session in the Legislature this year. For example, she used her position on the Capital Development Committee to get a $40 million list of major construction projects in the 2014 budget, including a new $18 million classroom building for Colorado State University-Pueblo. Still, the gun-control legislation has shadowed her all year.

"But I'd have had a lot more people angry at me if I'd voted against these bills," Giron told a supporter Wednesday.

Still, she noted she didn't support all of the gun-control measures -- opposing a bill to ban concealed weapons on college campuses. She also modified the background-check legislation so that family members could give guns to each other or loan guns to friends without needing a review.

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(c)2013 The Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo, Colo.)

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Democrat target of gun control recall threatens to make petition names public
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2013/06/06/democrat-target-of-gun-control-recall-threatens-to-make-petition-names-public/

John Hames