The Colorado Republican Party moved Saturday to remove state party chairman Dave Williams from his position, though Williams has denied the legitimacy of such a move.
About 160 Republicans, out of the roughly 180 who attended the conference, voted to remove Williams as party chairman at Saturday’s meeting. According to local news reports.
But there is disagreement over the interpretation of state party rules regarding the removal of officers, and whether those rules can be interpreted to mean that a vote of at least three-fifths of Republican Central Committee members is sufficient to remove an officer, or whether a vote of at least three-fifths of all Republican Central Committee members is required.
The state party In the release, Republicans charged that the move was an “illegal attempt to reinterpret our bylaws and unfairly exclude all of our duly elected officers,” while Republicans who attended the event voted in favor of interpreting the rules to mean Republicans in attendance, rather than all members. According to the Colorado Sun.
“There is no way that 77 people from the far-right wing of the party can have the power to make decisions for over 400 members in a sham meeting. It is absurd to suggest that less than half of the membership can meet without authorization, remove duly elected officials by less than three-fifths of the membership, and then elect a new chair by less than a quarter of the membership,” Williams said in a text message to The Hill.
“Members of the Republican National Committee have already determined that their meeting was invalid and that only our meeting on August 31st was a legitimate meeting,” he added.
The Journal reached out to the Republican National Committee to ask how the committee perceived the election results.
Meanwhile, Republicans at Saturday’s meeting elected Eli Bremer, a former El Paso County Republican Party chair, former U.S. Senate candidate and former Olympian, to be the next state party chairman.
Williams angered state Republicans by using state party funds to promote his bid for U.S. House seat in the 5th Congressional District, which he lost to Jeff Crank in the June Republican primary.
He has also drawn the ire of party members for the state party’s anti-LGBTQ messaging, including a claim that “atheists in our society want to attack what is decent, sacred and righteous” in June, also known as Pride Month. The state GOP also posted on X, “#BurnAllPrideFlagsThisJune.”
