3 Senate Democrats join GOP in effort to repeal magazine limit
During a legislative hearing in 2014 to overturn an ammunition magazine limit, Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, holds up two high capacity 30-round magazines to demonstrate that it is impossible to identify which is an illegal magazine and which is a legal magazine. He is seated next to Rep. Chris Holbert, R-Parker. This year, both Cooke and Holbert are senators and have introduced a bill to overturn the magazine limit. (Photo By Helen H. Richardson/ The Denver Post)
Three Senate Democrats broke from their party Tuesday to join Republicans in an effort to repeal the states limit on the size of ammunition magazines.
The bill won approval on a 21-13 vote with support from Democratic Sens. Kerry Donovan of Vail, Leroy Garcia of Pueblo and Cheri Jahn of Wheat Ridge.
It now heads to the House, where Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, has said it will not pass.
The original law won approval in the Democratic-controlled legislature in 2013, as part of a broader package of gun restrictions that came in response to the mass shootings at the Aurora movie theater in July 2012 and an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. It banned gun magazines with more than 15 rounds of ammunition.
But its passage came with political ramifications after it spurred the recall of two Democratic state senators.
The two Democrats who represents those districts now took different sides of the effort to repeal the magazine limit.
Garcia, who represents the 3rd District where former Sen. Angela Giron was recalled, voted to repeal the bill. But Sen. Michael Merrifield, a Colorado Springs Democrat in the 11th District, voted against the measure to preserve the magazine limit.
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3 Senate Democrats join GOP in effort to repeal magazine limit