Recall petition efforts are underway against four Colorado legislators. One of them, State Senator Evie Hudak, happened to come across a recall petitioner in her district outside a store. According to this story, Senator Hudak attempted to have the petitioner removed from that location. However, twenty-two years ago, Colorado state courts ruled that First Amendment activity must be permitted on shopping center property. Thanks to Doug McNeil for the link.
SUE for $$$ DAMAGES – for violations of constitutional RIGHTS ???
Bankrupt the EVIL arrogant powermad gerrymander MONSTERS ??? Duh.
Petition circulators getting hassled and kicked out of locations is something that happens on a regular basis. I’m glad to see this incident got some media coverage, but everyone needs to know that this is not a rare occurrence. This is actually a major problem in this country that goes unnoticed by most of the public. Why is it a major problem? Because when petition circulators can not get access to locations where they can ask people to sign petitions, they can not gather enough signatures to qualify the petition they are circulating for the ballot, be it a candidate or party petition, an initiative petition, a referendum petition, or a recall petition. Even if they are gathering signatures on a non-binding plebicsite petition it is still a problem, because if they are trying to use this type of petition to influence government policy, they can not gain much influence if they can not collect that many signatures due to be locked out of places where they can ask the public to sign.
Colorado is one of the few states where the law even recognizes that people have a right to gather petition signatures in places where the public has access (the other states are Washington, California, and Massachusetts), and this right in Colorado has been under attack for the last few years. Most states are even worse in this regard.