Organizers of an effort to force Rep. Joann Windholz, R-Commerce City, to resign presented her office with about 63,000 signatures Tuesday at the Capitol. The petitioners cited “hateful” comments she made after the November shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.

“I can’t think of many things that would be more irresponsible and more outrageous than blaming Planned Parenthood for being shot,” said Chris Burley, a resident of Denver and senior campaign manager for Care2, the social-media activist platform behind the effort.

“The thing that I hope happens today is Rep. Windholz understands and acknowledges just how unreasonable these comments were and I would hope she takes a long, hard look at how she chooses to engage on these issues in the future,” he said. “I think this kind of irresponsibility should disqualify her from another term.”

Supporters of the petition carrying signs and chanting slogans drew reporters and cameras as they gathered on the West Steps and marched through the halls of the building.

Indeed, the group seemed more intent on media messaging than on actually forcing Windholz to resign by continuing the hard-slog and expensive campaigning it would take to actually recall Windholz from office. Democratic Party figures and big name progressive groups were notably absent from Tuesday’s rally.

Only a little more than a dozen members of the petition drive showed up to present Windholz with petitions carrying roughly 63,000 signatures. A mere 2,000 of those signatures came from residents of Colorado, the group said, and it was unclear how many of those signatures came from residents of Windholz’s Adams County district. It would take 3,500 or so valid signatures from her House district to spark a recall election.

In 2013, when state Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and state Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, were the first-ever state lawmakers to be recalled in Colorado, groups turned in well more than double the 7,178 valid signatures required from their larger state Senate districts.

Burley conceded that forcing Windholz to resign was unlikely and that the goal of the rally and the recall petition is to keep Windholz and what he called her “inflammatory rhetoric” in the news ahead of November, when voters in her closely divided swing district will decide to re-elect her. Windholz won her seat in 2014 by a mere 106 votes.

Currently two Democratic candidates have registered to run against Windholz, Commerce City candidates Dafna Michaelson Jenet and John Myers.

In the wake of the November shootings at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, which left three people dead, including a Colorado Springs police officer, Windholz posted a statement at her Facebook page suggesting Planned Parenthood was to blame for the attack.

“Violence is never the answer but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any (Planned Parenthood) facility, is pph themselves. Violence begets violence. So pph, YOU STOP THE VIOLENCE INSIDE YOUR WALLS.”

Burley slammed Windholz for “blaming the victim” for the shooting and said her statement amounted to political pandering at a time that called for solidarity.

“When we should have been grieving the three people who were killed in Colorado Springs, the people who were traumatized by the violence that this deranged mind had perpetrated, instead (Winholz) chose to try and score political points with an extreme base,” Burley said. “She could have been part of the healing. Instead, she chose to exacerbate one of the most divisive issues Colorado faces.”

State House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Gunbarrel, spoke on the legislative session’s opening day earlier this month about the need to push back against harsh rhetoric on women’s health issues and she has worked to kill several bills that place restrictions on access to abortion in the state.

“It’s (Windholz’s) choice (to resign) and it’s not a rally that we have organized or that we will be involved in,” Hullinghorst said Tuesday. “I prefer to let the election take care of those issues and I’m pretty confident it will in this next election.”

– ramsey@coloradostatesman.com