Politics

Republicans are trying to remove America’s only gay & bisexual governors from office

Governor Kate Brown in 2016
Governor Kate Brown in 2016 Photo: Shu

Republicans are attempting to recall the U.S.’s only gay and bisexual governors for the crime of enacting the agenda that they ran on.

Republicans in Oregon are trying to recall out Governor Kate Brown (D), accusing her of doing nothing to enact the Republican Party platform. Brown identifies as bisexual.

Oregon Republican Party chair Bill Currier filed a recall petition against Brown. Usually recall elections are for politicians who are corrupt or commit crimes while in office. But Currier’s petition is about Brown’s policies instead. He cites policies she promoted on the environment, immigration, and civil rights as reasons to recall her.

Related: America’s first gay elected governor was sworn in & LGBTQ people celebrated with him

“The people of Oregon deserve and expect a Governor that honors the will of the voters and works for the good of all citizens,” Currier said in the petition. He has not said whether he expects Republican lawmakers to enact the Democratic agenda while in office.

Republicans are also going after out Governor Jared Polis (D) in Colorado. Earlier this year, a recall petition was started. Republicans cited Polis’s policies on energy and guns as reasons for the recall instead of any accusations of wrong-doing. Polis was the first out gay man elected as Governor of a state.

Karen Kateline, a radio host who is working on the recall effort, told the AP that Republicans aren’t abusing the recall.

“Nobody is putting the brakes on these people,” she said, referring to recall efforts against Polis as well as several state legislators.

GOP consultant Ben Engen has been reportedly holding training sessions for Republicans in Western states to help them recall Democrats so that they can possibly be replaced by Republicans.

One tactic he teaches is to submit the petition at the correct time in order to trigger a winter recall election, when unaffiliated voters are less likely to turn up at the polls but conservative demographics are more likely to.

If successful, these recall efforts would remove the only two out governors in the U.S.

But Brown seems confident, calling the recall effort “crazy.”

“Not only have I had one election in the last three years, I’ve had two. And I won both of them handily,” Brown told the Huffington Post. “So what part of the will of the voters are they ignoring?”

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