DENVER — The group trying to defend state Sen. Evie Hudak from a recall effort targeting her has raised $120,000, much of it from teachers’ unions, according to a finance report posted Monday night.
The NEA Fund for Children and Public Education has contributed $25,000 to the group, which also received $20,000 from AFSCME and $10,000 apiece from SEIU Local 105 and Colorado AFL-CIO Labor 2K.
Hudak, D-Westminster, serves as the chair of the Senate Education Committee and has always had strong support from the teachers’ union.
The total sum of contributions to the pro-Hudak group is significantly more than what’s been raised by the group leading the recall effort, Recall Hudak Too, which posted a report last week showing $86,000 in total contributions, mostly small gifts from individual donors.
However, another organization, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, is also supporting the recall; and RMGO’s Joe Neville told FOX31 Denver earlier this month that the organization was paying Kennedy Enterprises, which pays petition circulators between $3 and $5 per signature.
Nowhere on the most recent financial report from RMGO’s political action committee, filed on Oct. 15, is there any expenditure for Kennedy or any other recall-related group or activity.
Interestingly, that report shows just $150 in contributions raised between July 1 and September 31 and $16,000 in expenditures.
The organization may be supporting the recall through not through its PAC but its 501(c)4.
According to state law, campaign-related expenditures must be reported.
Recall organizers have until Dec. 3 to submit around 19,000 valid signatures that are required to force a special election to potentially oust Hudak.
If the Secretary of State certifies such an election, Hudak could be the third Democratic lawmaker bounced from office in a backlash over her support of gun control bills that passed earlier this year.
Former Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, both lost recall elections in September.