Colorado Republicans have ousted Dave Williams as party chair in a contested vote. Will the decision stick?

Dave Williams and other top officials in the Colorado Republican Party are “squatters,” illegitimately occupying the party’s Greenwood Village headquarters after having been booted from their leadership positions over the weekend.

So says Eli Bremer, whom the party’s central committee selected to replace Williams as party chair in a vote on Saturday.

“My job is to get this thing back on track as fast as possible and make sure it’s rebuilt correctly to support Republican candidates,” said Bremer, a former chair of the El Paso County Republican Party and a 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate, on Monday.

But Williams, in a text message to The Denver Post, called the contention that he was no longer the head of the GOP in Colorado “beyond absurd.” He said a “fringe party faction” that met in Brighton over the weekend does not “get to decide for 400 plus members (of the central committee) at a fake meeting.”

In an email sent after Saturday’s vote, the party claimed that Republican National Committee parliamentarian Al Gage had already determined in an opinion that the meeting in Brighton was “illegitimate” and any action taken “was or will be null and void.”

More than 180 committee members attended or participated by proxy. All but a handful took part in the vote, with more than 90% of votes cast in support of Williams’ removal, according to former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams — no relation — who served as parliamentarian for the meeting.

As with the two popes who ruled the Roman Catholic Church in the late 14th and early 15th centuries after the institution underwent a major schism, the state Republican Party is without a definitive leader. Ultimately, it may be up to a judge or the RNC to determine who is the legitimate head of the Colorado GOP.

“Since this has already gone to a court three times, it’s going to go to a court a fourth time,” said Todd Watkins, the vice chair of the El Paso County Republicans who spearheaded Saturday’s meeting at a Brighton church. “It’s obviously going to be a legal battle — we always knew that.”

Still, Saturday’s decision quickly gained some influential recognition. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which supports GOP congressional candidates, announced it would support the result, and luminaries including former U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner congratulated Bremer.

The latest twists and turns in the long-running skirmish between mainstream critics and Dave Williams, a far-right former state lawmaker who ascended to the top of the party last year, has revealed a Colorado Republican Party riven by dissent and bitter division just 10 weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

Cries for Williams’ ouster from within his own party have grown louder over the last few months. They’re centered on his unorthodox and controversial decision to pick and choose certain GOP candidates as favorites during the primary election season — including himself in his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District.

In April, Williams was criticized for tossing a political reporter from the party assembly in Pueblo due to his belief that the reporter’s coverage of Republicans had been “very unfair.” Around the same time, a Republican strategist filed an ethics complaint against Williams, alleging he improperly used state party monies to help his congressional effort.

In June, Williams was lambasted by politicians on both sides of the aisle after he sent out an email under the party banner titled “God hates pride,” repeating anti-LGBTQ+ smears and calling for the burning of Pride flags.

Late last month, the planned attempt to oust Williams was put on hold by a district court judge before regaining momentum in early August when the judge decided his court lacked jurisdiction to block it.

That resulted in Saturday’s gathering of the party’s central committee in Brighton for a special meeting.

The party’s bylaws, which set the threshold to remove the chair at 60% of the committee, leave some room for interpretation. But the Brighton attendees voted to interpret the threshold as the proportion of those in attendance at the meeting.

Watkins said the true desires of the party were already borne out during the June primary, when nearly every one of Williams’ endorsed congressional candidates lost their race.

“That’s the party we’re supposed to be representing,” Watkins said of the winners.

Most of the Republican nominees in the state’s eight congressional races signed a letter Saturday recognizing Bremer as chair of the state party, along with former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn as vice chair and former Mesa County GOP Chair Kevin McCarney as secretary. Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen also signed the letter.