{"id":1312957,"date":"2019-07-29T20:29:16","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T02:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=985127"},"modified":"2019-07-29T21:56:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T03:56:51","slug":"dismiss-polis-organizers-bullish-in-garfield-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/dismiss-polis-organizers-bullish-in-garfield-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Dismiss Polis organizers bullish in Garfield County"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shooters Grill is one of several places in Rifle where registered Colorado voters can sign a petition to recall Gov. Jared Polis.<\/strong>
\nKyle Mills<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Gun laws, the national popular vote, and oil and gas regulation are leading some in Garfield County to sign petitions to recall Gov. Jared Polis just six months into his term.<\/p>\n

And organizers say it\u2019s more than just Republicans who want to fire the Democratic governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a Republican effort; this is very much a Colorado-citizens-who-have-had enough-already effort,\u201d said Sherrona Bishop, chair of the Dismiss Polis effort in Garfield County.<\/p>\n

Dismiss Polis was recognized by the Colorado Secretary of State July 8, beginning a 60-day window the group has to collect 631,266 signatures. Dismiss Polis has a goal of 900,000, which would be more than 10,000 signatures a day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how many complete petitions have been returned locally or throughout Colorado thus far. Bishop says that many petitions have gone out, and are slowly being collected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are Democrats, unaffiliated, independents, Republicans, conservatives \u2014 there are people who have never voted in their lives who are registering to be a part of this effort,\u201d Bishop said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have so many petitions out, and people gathering them, that it would be inaccurate to give a number,\u201d said Karen Kataline, statewide spokeswoman for Dismiss Polis.<\/p>\n

Carrie Couey, chair of the Garfield County Republicans, also said that it\u2019s not just Republicans signing the petition.<\/p>\n

But, while Couey said she signed the petition, neither the local or state Republican Party has endorsed the recall efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not taking an official stance [on the petition], because there are differing opinions,\u201d Couey said. But she noted, \u201cif the grassroots effort succeeds, we will stand behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garfield County Democrats Chairman John Kousouloudis said Polis\u2019 work has done good things for all of Colorado, from education initiatives like additional support for preschool and kindergarten to lowered health insurance premiums.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things are not just benefiting Democrats or a particular part of the population, they\u2019re benefiting everyone,\u201d Kousouloudis said.<\/p>\n

The recall effort \u201cmakes no sense,\u201d Kousouloudis added. \u201cPolis got elected as a clear majority, and in his very short time as governor, he\u2019s delivering results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis won the statewide election for governor last November with 53.4% of the vote to Republican Walker Stapleton\u2019s 42.8% and 2.8% for Libertarian candidate Scott Helker.<\/p>\n

The Democrat even won in typically red Garfield County, with 49% of the vote to Stapleton\u2019s 47.5% and Helker\u2019s 2.5%.<\/p>\n

But Bishop believes a closet majority in Garfield County is concerned about Polis succeeding on his agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to trust our government, but when we start feeling the effects of their legislation daily, it doesn\u2019t sit well with people. They understand that the government is overreaching,\u201d Bishop said.<\/p>\n

The trifecta of Democratic control in the state House, Senate and the governor\u2019s mansion helped push through 460 new laws in Colorado, several of which were highly controversial.<\/p>\n

Among the most contentious bills was Senate Bill 181. It allows for more local regulation of oil and gas regulations and shifted the mandate for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to one of regulating, rather than fostering oil and gas development.<\/p>\n

Bishop says the new law has already had a negative impact on oil and gas jobs in the Garfield County, which is the second-largest gas producing county in the state.<\/p>\n

The Red Flag Gun bill, which creates a judicial system to remove guns from those deemed dangerous to themselves or others by a court, violates several portions of the bill of rights, said Kataline, particularly the Fourth Amendment that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, if enough signatures are gathered to recall a candidate, he or she has five days to resign or stay and face a statewide election. The recall ballot would also have alternative candidates.<\/p>\n

Polis won about 350 more votes in Garfield County last November than Republican Stapleton.<\/p>\n

But when it came to specific policies on the ballot, like Amendment 112 that would have established greater oil and gas setbacks statewide, Garfield County, along with most of the state, voted them down.<\/p>\n

To Bishop, that indicates that Coloradans are socially progressive, but want the government to stay out of their lives as much as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my opinion that the political parties try to separate Colorado citizens, when we actually hold the common ideas that the government should stay out. But everybody should be welcome and feel loved,\u201d Bishop said.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shooters Grill is one of several places in Rifle where registered Colorado voters can sign a petition to recall Gov. Jared Polis. Kyle Mills Gun laws, the national popular vote, and oil and gas regulation are leading some in Garfield County to sign petitions to recall Gov. Jared Polis just six months into his term. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 12:34:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312957"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312970,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312957\/revisions\/1312970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}