Petition to recall Colorado Gov. Jared Polis filed for second year in a row

For the second year in a row, a group has filed a petition to recall Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

The new effort comes on the heels of Dismiss Polis and Resist Polis PAC falling short of the 631,266-signature goal just last year.

Josh Dunn, Political Science Professor at UCCS said, “Twice in a period of two years I think yeah, maybe it’s happened before but it’s not terribly common.”

This new group, Recall Polis 2020, listed four specific reasons to the Secretary of State's Office. The first reason claims that Polis “has abused his emergency power by exceeding the scope of his powers under Colorado's Disaster Emergency Act."

The second reason that was listed says, “Governor Polis overstepped his powers and infringed upon the role of the legislative branch when he spent the entirety of 1.6 billion dollars in Cares Act funds."

The third reason claims, "Governor Polis issued an unconstitutional executive order intending to suspend certain statutes that required signature collection to be conducted in person."

And the fourth reason says, "Governor Polis explicitly discriminated against houses of worship."

If you want to read the full description of each issue you can do so by clicking here.

Dunn says these new complaints, however, are much different from what we saw last year.

“Concern about COVID and Colorado’s response to COVID and, of course, trying to single out and identify things that Polis has done that might not be as popular, some of his executive orders, those kinds of things,” Dunn said.

If Recall Polis 2020, wants to get the ball moving on a potential recall, they will need to turn in the necessary amount of signatures needed, which is 25% of the total votes cast at the last preceding general election. However, more steps will then need to be taken if Polis is to be recalled.

“They have two hurdles, they first have to get enough signatures to force the recall election and then you have to actually succeed in recalling him. I don’t think their odds are good on either one of those,” said Dunn.

So far, Recall Polis 2020, has raised more than $4,000 in cash and an additional $7,000 in non-monetary contributions. On top of that, the group has also set up a Gofundme page which has raised more than $7,600.

The signature list has to be presented by November 13th.