A Monday in late August isn’t typically a buzzing political time in Colorado politics, but this year appears to be the exception. State lawmakers convened Monday at the capitol for the start of a special legislative session on property taxes. It’s part of an effort to head off two proposed ballot measures that local communities say would devastate funding for K-12 schools and other public services.
Meanwhile, Colorado Republicans continue to grapple with a bitter intraparty schism with no immediate end in sight as two men both claim to be the Colorado Republican Party chair.
“I think the public looks at that and it's one more party squabble,” said Republican Sen. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs. “And frankly, the other side of the aisle has its own. And RFK Jr pulls out of the race and everybody goes crazy about that. It has very little to do with what's happening here this week.”
Gardner is term-limited after 16 years at the legislature. He believes the state party needs new leadership.
“I don't make any bones about that. I, for my part, have left that to others to deal with because I wasn't elected as state senator to get into that fight and spend a lot of time and let my focus be taken away from what I'm sitting here to do, which is to make good policy for my constituents in the state,” he said.
At a meeting in Brighton Saturday a group of Republican officials and activists, including state lawmakers, voted to remove Williams. They elected Eli Bremer, a former U.S. Senate candidate and former El Paso County GOP chair, to serve until a new leadership election next year. Saturday’s vote came after months of dissatisfaction with Williams including low fundraising and his attacks on Republicans in competitive primary races.
But Williams said the meeting was illegal and the vote invalid. Williams said the required threshold of 60 percent of the entire Republican central committee was not met.
“A fringe element of our state party, who has now proven that they do not care about electing Trump this November, held a fraudulent meeting today with 77 people in actual attendance (who also brought with them 104 questionable proxies),” Dave Williams said in a Facebook post Saturday night.
Williams said his critics illegally re-interpreted the Republican Party bylaws to improperly remove him. The group also removed the party’s vice-chair and secretary. Williams is holding another meeting at the end of this month that he said will be the formal vote.
Bremer anticipates there may be legal action against Williams if he doesn’t hand over control of the mechanics of the party — such as social media and bank accounts.
“It'll largely just depend on him to see how much he wants to cooperate or not cooperate,” Bremer told CPR News in an interview on Sunday.
“There's so many issues from email lists and passwords to the Twitter handle to all of these things that are out there — multiple bank accounts,” Bremer said. “There's been so little transparency that we're sort of walking in a little blindly to understand exactly what's going on.”
Bremer said he plans to repair relationships with candidates, the national party and regular party members, and also audit the party’s finances.
“But at the same time my focus will be predominantly to get Republicans elected in November.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee said they see the vote as valid and will recognize Bremer as chair. However that’s not the same as a formal designation, which would have to come from the Republican National Committee. Saturday’s vote had 90 percent in support of removal of the member’s who appeared. For Republican Rep. Matt Soper of Delta, that was enough.
“That seems like a very clear message that the core leadership of the party, the rank and file within the counties around the state, want a change in leadership,” Soper said. “And they exercised their right to change leadership by their vote.”
Soper said he doesn’t think the leadership fight will impact local Colorado races this November. He believes there’s a movement to prevent Democrats from having a supermajority in both chambers of the statehouse.
Nationally, Republicans are focused on the 8th Congressional District just north of Denver. It could be key to control of the House of Representatives for either party. The GOP also wants to make sure Congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s former seat, the 3rd Congressional District which includes the Western Slope and Southern Colorado, stays red. Republicans almost lost the seat last cycle.
“So they're already fully engaged with how to win without the air support that the Colorado GOP would normally give candidates,” said Soper. “It's a sad state of affairs, but it's already been factored into the campaign strategies.”
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen said he’s not taking sides in the leadership fight, but said Bremer did call him over the weekend speaking as chair.
“He reached out and said, ‘How can I help in a way that you would find supportive?’ And I said, ‘Wow, thanks for the phone call,’” Lundeen said. “I will take those kinds of phone calls from anybody, anybody who wants to call and say, ‘How can I help get more Republicans elected to the state Senate?’”
Lundeen said the fact the National Republican Campaign Committee has recognized Bremer means money will flow into the state in a way that was not previously. But he said because of independent expenditures and outside dark money spending, state political parties don’t have the power they used to, coupled with more ways for candidates to get their message out to voters.
“Personalities have become a more important part of the political conversation because personalities have become a bigger part of the societal conversation, and that might have fed the diminishment of the party,” he said.
