COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Viewed nationally as exclusively a blowback against anti-gun laws, this week’s recalls of Colorado Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and state Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, played out locally as battles also involving abortion.

The Sept. 10 special elections replaced two pro-abortion-rights Democrats with self-professed pro-life Republicans, in dramatic defiance of Colorado’s decade-long political drift toward left-of-center social policies.

“I think it is very, very promising,” said Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, regarding the pro-life stands of his area’s new senators.

Bishop Sheridan’s cathedral and diocesan headquarters sit smack in the middle of Senate District 11, which Morse served until the recall. Bishop Sheridan also serves as administrator of the Diocese of Pueblo, a heavily Catholic and Latino community in which Giron was recalled. Her replacement will be the first Republican to serve the district in more than 60 years.

The district formerly served by Morse includes Colorado College, a prestigious private institution known for its exceptionally liberal student body and faculty, and the artsy, marijuana-friendly suburb of Manitou Springs — a community ranked 14th-best place in America for hippies this year by Estately.

Former Colorado Springs City Councilman Bernie Herpin will replace Morse, who earned a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. Morse also helped enact same-sex civil unions last spring as one of the first measures approved by the Senate.

George Rivera, a retired Pueblo police officer, will replace Giron, who recently received high praise from NARAL and other pro-abortion groups.

NARAL had only negatives statements about Rivera and Herpin.

“George Rivera signed the ‘personhood’ initiative petition in 2012,” said an Aug. 13 NARAL press release. “Bernie Herpin told extremist group Pikes Peak Citizens for Life that he believes in ‘personhood’ and that life begins at the moment of fertilization.”

 

‘Scare Tactics’

Neither Herpin nor Rivera has a voting record on life issues, but television and radio ads relentlessly pummeled each man for “extreme” positions against abortion. Ads insisted the men want criminal investigations of natural miscarriages and laws to forbid “all forms of birth control.” Both campaigns denied the claims.

“I heard some of the attacks, and they sounded over the edge and more like scare tactics than anything else,” Bishop Sheridan said.

Planned Parenthood helped fund the million-dollar-plus campaigns against Herpin and Rivera. Michael Bloomberg, the pro-abortion-rights mayor of New York, with a net worth of $25 billion, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to keep Morse and Giron in office. So did pro-abortion-rights Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad.

Political observers, including writers for the Washington-based Weekly Standard, say outside special interests have invested heavily for years to transform Colorado into a reliably Democratic stronghold. National money poured in to fight the recalls, they say, because Morse and Giron represent “The Colorado Model” — a label given to big-money transformations of socially and morally conservative, pro-life states.

“My devotion to God and country guide my life,” Herpin told the Register Sept. 11, the day after his election.

Though Herpin and Rivera told the Register they oppose abortion, neither would discuss detailed positions regarding life of the mother, rape and incest.

“We’re taught that every life is precious, and I take that to heart,” said Herpin, a Lutheran. “Our Founding Fathers clearly outlined the inalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They put them in that order for a reason.”

Rivera, a lifelong Catholic, said this: “I’m pro-life. That’s it. Opponents tried to twist my position into something extreme, so all I can say is I’m pro-life.”

 

Abortion Issue Was Secondary

Campaign insiders said the newly elected senators have become hesitant to discuss the issue in detail, fearing misrepresentation of their positions, after enduring months of campaign attacks. Some backers of the new senators complain that Colorado’s pro-life community did nothing to counter the attacks by assisting the campaigns.

“In these recalls, there was no visible support from the pro-life community,” said Eli Bremer, former chairman of the Republican Party of El Paso County, the most populous county in Colorado that includes the district Morse served.

“If pro-life groups fail to get involved to support pro-life candidates, there will be fewer vocal pro-life elected officials. If those candidates are left on an island while the pro-abortion groups spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to push their radical agenda, why would anyone stick their neck out on this issue?”

Father Bill Carmody, respect life coordinator for the Diocese of Colorado Springs, said the recall was mostly about guns. Abortion was made an issue, he said, only by special-interest organizations that wanted a distraction from the anti-Second Amendment positions of the incumbents.

“Am I happy about this outcome? Sure,” said Father Carmody. “But this wasn’t about abortion. The incumbents used the issue because it worked for President Obama, and they hoped it would work against the recall efforts. Clearly, it did not.”

Father Carmody hopes Rivera and Herpin will introduce pro-life legislation, if only to get other politicians from both parties on record voting it up or down. He suggests they won’t be able to prevail with pro-life bills at this juncture, given Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and abundant abortion-rights support from moderate Republicans.

With the recalls, the Senate’s three-person Democratic majority dropped to one.

“I would like to see one of these men introduce a right-to-know bill,” Carmody said. “It would guarantee information to women seeking abortions and create a 24-hour waiting period. We could start there.”

 

Wait-and-See Approach

Stephanie Kemp, respect life coordinator at St. Peter Catholic Church, a parish north of District 11, plans to take a wait-and-see approach to the new senators. She suspects they’ll be vast improvements over their pro-abortion predecessors, but says more legislative inaction wouldn’t help much.

“We have a lot of self-professed pro-life politicians who warm seats in the (state) Legislature,” Kemp explained. “I hope they will take their positions to heart and do something.”

Morse was elected to the state Senate in 2006, defeating Ed Jones — a black journalist who frequently illustrates how abortion businesses target black women and babies. Jones ranks opposition to abortion as his highest priority, so he fully backed the election of Herpin.

Speaking at at the El Paso County Republican Headquarters, where he celebrated Herpin’s win and the political demise of Senate President Morse, Jones said, “I’ve been vindicated.”

Register correspondent Wayne Laugesen writes from Colorado.