WE LOST! Yes, we lost the Colorado recall election on Tuesday, September 10, 2013, setting a precedent in Colorado history. John Morse (D) will be replaced by Bernie Herpin (R) and Angela Giron (D) will be replaced by George Rivera (R). The first recall in Colorado history was a 50-50 win for the NRA. The Colorado recall effort began by targeting four state Senators, but the organizers failed to get enough signatures for two of their targets. It was estimated that less than 20% of registered voters went to the polls yesterday. Official totals will be added to this diary when they become available.
Morse and Giron, along with a a majority of their colleagues, stood up to the NRA and voted with a majority of their colleagues to pass some gun reform laws. And now they have been "punished" at the polls, just like some Kossacks predicted. We acknowledge that we lost. We welcome those who need to tell us "I told you so" to come on over and tell us exactly that, as we cry in our beer and figure out what to do next.
Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Democrats lose two Colorado recalls; de Blasio Nears Primary Win
by David Nir
• CO Recall: In a devastating result for Democrats, two legislators who supported new gun safety laws, state Senate President John Morse and state Sen. Angela Giron, both lost in recall elections spurred by the NRA and gun activists on Tuesday night, Morse by less than 2 percent, Giron by 12. Morse will be replaced by Republican Bernie Herpin; Giron's seat, meanwhile, will be taken over by another Republican, George Rivera. Both Herpin and Rivera have to go before voters next year, and both seats gave Barack Obama about 58 to 59 percent of the vote in 2012, so they won't be easy holds for the GOP. But last night's results show just how badly Democratic turnout dropped in these unusually timed, off-off-year elections.
For now, Democrats' 20-15 edge in the Senate has been whittled down to a precarious 18-17—and the NRA and their allies will crow about what this means for proponents of gun regulations. Conservatives have talked about ushering in a "wave of fear" among Democratic lawmakers nationwide, but more immediately, they might attempt another recall to try to take control of the chamber, since Republicans clearly benefit when holding elections in non-presidential years. This falloff in enthusiasm in years not divisible by four is probably the biggest electoral challenge Democrats face nationwide right now, and these recalls, if any good is to come of them, should spur the party to seriously address this major problem.
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When I was searching through Daily Kos for the articles about the
DC v. Heller (2008) and
McDonald v. Chicago (2010) Supreme Court decisions I found this lovely diary by Kaili Joy Gray. She was one of my favorite front page writers. Even though she no longer writes for Daily Kos, we still have her unique blend of snark and seriousness to draw upon as we seek to understand post-
Heller gun rights, specifically which state and local laws are consistent with the individual right to keep and bear arms as articulated by the current Supreme Court in
Heller and
McDonald.
While I don't agree with all her arguments, I found some of her arguments compelling, and included her diary in our first Glossary of Resources.
Kaili's top 5 reasons, "Why Liberals Should Love the Second Amendment"
No. 1: The Bill of Rights protects individual rights.
No. 2: We oppose restrictions to our civil liberties.
No. 3: It's not 1776 anymore.
No. 4: It's not like you can use it anyway.
No. 5: The Second Amendment is about revolution.
We are a new group, barely three weeks old. Conceived as a study group, we seek to understand current gun laws and policies that are consistent with
Heller and
McDonald. We are in an experimental phase where some states have passed new strict laws and other states have repealed laws or passed new laws that expand the individual right to keep and bear arms. Hundreds of state and local gun laws have been challenged and are percolating up through the lower courts. The vast majority are being upheld.
We can not ignore the political reality, however, of this third rail topic. Please join us below the fold for discussion of Kaili's five arguments and how they might explain the Colorado backlash and last night's recall election results.
by Kaili Joy Gray (Oct. 6, 2009)
Liberals love the Constitution.
Ask anyone on the street. They'll tell you the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a liberal organization.
I know liberal couples who give each other pocket size copies of the Constitution for Christmas.
Ask liberals to list their top five complaints about the Bush Administration, and they will invariably say the words "shredding" and "Constitution" in the same sentence. They might also add "Fourth Amendment" and "due process." It's possible they'll talk about "free speech zones" and "habeus corpus."
There's a good chance they will mention, probably in combination with several FCC-prohibited adjectives, the former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
So.
Liberals love the Constitution. They especially love the Bill of Rights. They love all the Amendments.
Except for one: the Second Amendment.
When it comes to discussing the Second Amendment, liberals check at the door their ability to think rationally. In discussing the importance of any other portion of the Bill of Rights, liberals can quote legal precedent, news reports, and exhaustive studies. They can talk about the intentions of the Founding Fathers.
And they will, almost without exception, conclude the necessity of respecting, and not restricting, civil liberties.
So why do liberals have such a problem with the Second Amendment? Why do they lump all gun owners in the category of "gun nuts"? Why do they complain about the "radical extremist agenda of the NRA"? Why do they argue for greater restrictions?
Why do they start performing mental gymnastics worthy of a position in Bush's Department of Justice to rationalize what they consider "reasonable" infringement of one of our most basic, fundamental, and revolutionary -- that's right, revolutionary -- civil liberties?
Why do they pursue these policies at the risk of alienating voters who might otherwise vote Democrat? Why are they so dismissive of approximately 40% of American households that own one or more guns?
And why is their approach to the Second Amendment so different from their approach to all the others?
Well, if conversations on this blog about the issue of guns are in any way indicative of the way other liberals feel, maybe this stems from a basic misunderstanding.
So, allow me to attempt to explain the Second Amendment in a way that liberals should be able to endorse.
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Courtesy Kos
Please argue your case the way Wee Mama illustrated in her excellent diary, Make Your Case , attempt to win over your opponent the way akadjian laid out here, and join us for collaborative discussions like this and this.
UPDATED: Thu Sep 12, 2013 at 7:38 AM PT:
Colorado is a Schiznit points out some reasons in Why Colorado Lost Two Democratic Senators
David Nir reports this morning that we could have seen it coming, except we didn't because an experienced pollster discounted their own results.
• CO Recall: Following Tuesday's recall elections in Colorado, where two Democratic state senators were turfed out and replaced by Republicans, PPP's Tom Jensen revealed something very unusual. It turns out that he took a poll of ex-state Sen. Angela Giron's 3rd District over the weekend, but because he didn't believe it yielded accurate results, he decided to sit on it. Even more unusually, Jensen then chose to reveal the data after the fact, because it turned out to be dead-on.
… Continue reading David Nir at Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Thompson vows to press on, but pressure mounts to concede
Fri Sep 13, 2013 at 9:51 AM PT: Diary analyzing voter turn out by Kos: More on Colorado recalls and voter turnout.
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