Shocking email: Dems threaten Colo. sheriffs’ salaries over gun control

March 10, 2013 by Michael Dorstewitz 17 Comments

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Sheriff Terry Maketa: “I was absolutely outraged… I made it very clear that I felt it was almost bordering extortion, attempted influence of a public official.”
Photo credit www.denverpost.com

The Colorado gun debate is heating up. Companies are threatening to move, rape victims are ridiculed for testifying in committee hearings that they desire guns for self-protection, and potential victims are instructed to rely on rape whistles and call boxes. Now the state’s sheriffs have entered the fray, expressing support for the Second Amendment, and according to El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa, the officers are getting some blowback from the Democratic Party.
In an interview Saturday morning with Jeff Crank on 740 AM KVOR radio, Maketa said 30 Colorado sheriffs went to the state capitol to speak out against restrictive gun control legislation.
Only one sheriff of the 30 present was allowed to speak against the rule-change bill, Maketa told KVOR, adding that typically all those present would have been allowed to speak.
Maketa then referred to an email he’d received Wednesday saying “that the Senate Dem Leadership is very upset with the Sheriffs and their opposition to the gun control bills.”
Sheriffs’ salaries are set by state lawmakers upon the recommendation of a salary commission’s findings, he explained. “But the Dems have been dangling [the salary bill] out there and refusing to follow their own created commissions’ recommendations. They’ve put it off now for two years.”
The Senate Democrats, Maketa told Crank, were “very upset” with his “testimony in opposition on the gun bills. And they are stating that, basically, we should reconsider our position to gain a more favorable light for salary support from the Dems.”
The sheriff said he was “absolutely outraged by that. Number one, the salary bill for elected officials is a mandate of the legislature. Creating gun control is not a mandate, and in this case, there is no factual basis for it. And I made it very clear that I felt it was almost bordering extortion, attempted influence of a public official, but more so that we would be sacrificing our morals and principles in what we know is the right thing to do.”
The email is not being released so it can be preserved as evidence in a likely investigation, according to SpotlightOnCorruption.com.

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