May 09, 2019 03:39 PM UTC

Steve House Says the Quiet Part Out Loud on Recalls

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republicans gathered at the Pueblo Convention Center last Saturday for their annual “Derby Day Lincoln Dinner,” promoted as an “Evening with James O’Keefe of Project Veritas.” Inbetween dinner and O’Keefe hawking his latest book, Republicans in attendance heard a lot about recall elections in Colorado — perhaps a little too much.

One of the speakers at the Pueblo event was Steve House, the former GOP State Party Chair who is now the “CEO” of the State Party under new Republican Chairman Ken Buck. As you can hear in the audio clip below, House lays out a handful of priorities for the Colorado Republican Party that include supporting recall efforts across the state:

“We are going to support the recalls. We have to support the recalls, because, people…people are justifiably angry about what’s going on. And we need to, first of all, give a voice to that anger. And secondly, the process of identifying more voters for Trump, and for Cory Gardner, and for getting the State Senate back, starts as well with those recalls.” [Pols emphasis]

D’oh!

Recalls are how Republicans can start “getting the State Senate back.” This is the part about the recall efforts that House shouldn’t be discussing out loud: That Republicans see this as a way to subvert a regular election process that they are no longer capable of winning. 

Recall enthusiasts admitted last month that the rationale behind trying to oust Rep. Rochelle Galindo (D-Greeley) didn’t really have anything to do with her actual votes on issues; former Weld County GOP Chairwoman Stacey Kjeldgaard told the Greeley Tribune that they would be working to recall Galindo regardless of how she voted in the legislature. As we first reported in this space last month, GOP consultants have been caught explaining how recalls should be viewed as a neat way to elect more Republicans because of the opportunity to catch the majority of voters napping.

Hearing these sentiments from House is a bit different, however, because House is the guy running the day-to-day operations of the Colorado Republican Party. While Buck has generally tried to avoid specifics on the subject of recalls, House doesn’t even pretend that this isn’t about sneaking Republican candidates in through the back door.

As we’ve discussed in this space before, recall elections in Colorado are — first and foremost — about grift for Republican consultants and “issue groups” looking to make some cash in a non-election year. Various Republican-aligned groups and individuals are spending as much time attacking each other as they are promoting their recall elections, because nobody wants to share their space at the fundraising spigot.

Once you get past the wallet-stuffing aspect of the recall elections, the strategerie is clear. Galindo, for example, was first elected in November and must stand for re-election in just 18 months. The State Republican Party could should be spending their time organizing for November 2020, but those darn General Elections are too hard!