Judge orders halt on meeting to oust Colorado Republicans’ chair, but calls for Dave Williams’ resignation increase

A planned attempt to oust the head of the Colorado Republican Party this weekend was put on hold Friday by a district court judge — but not before calls for Dave Williams’ removal reached new peaks.

Williams, whose tenure as the GOP chair has been marked by controversy and months of growing intraparty frustrations, faced calls to resign Friday from most of the state’s Republican congressional nominees and Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen. And U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who received the state party’s endorsement in the June primary to represent a new district, slammed Williams in a Facebook post, though she stopped short of calling for a change in leadership.

Friday afternoon’s court ruling means that a meeting planned by some members of the party’s central committee Saturday in Brighton can’t undertake official business if organizers still meet.

Much of the frustration with Williams stems from the party’s unusual decision to endorse a slate of candidates during the primary season. It used party resources to boost its preferred Republicans — including Williams in his own race for Congress — and to tear down others. The party also faced widespread condemnation for an anti-LGBTQ+ email blast sent during Pride Month in June.

Almost all of the party’s preferred candidates in contested primaries lost their races, including Williams.

A group of county Republican Party leaders, including El Paso County vice chair Todd Watkins and Jefferson County chair Nancy Pallozzi, sought for weeks to force Saturday’s meeting of the central committee, which has more than 400 members, to replace Williams as head of the party. To remove him as chair would require 60% support from the committee.

State party officials rejected the special meeting as “illegal” earlier this month and followed it up last week by suing the party leaders who had called for it. But Watkins and others have contended that party bylaws required a special meeting to be called within 30 days of when he filed a petition last month, and a meeting organized by the party in a remote location last week — lasting minutes, without a quorum — didn’t cut it.

On Friday afternoon, Arapahoe County District Court Judge Thomas W. Henderson granted a restraining order against conducting official business at Saturday’s meeting. To allow it to happen would cause immediate harm, he wrote, because “the leadership of the Colorado Republican Party would be called into question, leaving the party in disarray roughly one hundred (100) days before election day on November 5, 2024.”

The ruling says the order will be in effect for up to 14 days, or until a hearing takes place on the party’s request for a preliminary injunction.

The party members who called the meeting did not return requests for comment Friday. The state party, meanwhile, celebrated the ruling with a splash ad across its homepage.

But the ruling didn’t undo the rising calls for Williams to resign.

Earlier in the day, six of the eight Republican nominees for Colorado’s seats in Congress this fall signed on to a letter to Williams, urging him “to resign from your chairmanship, today. If you elect not to resign, we implore the members of the State Central Committee to remove you tomorrow, July 27, 2024.”

In addition to Lundeen, it was signed by Valdamar Archuleta in the 1st Congressional District, Marshall Dawson in the 2nd District, Jeff Hurd in the 3rd District, Jeff Crank in the 5th District (who defeated Williams in the primary), John Fabbricatore in the 6th District and Gabe Evans in the 8th District. Some of those candidates had been endorsed by the party in June.

“It’s time that state party leadership who work for the benefit of the party replace leadership that has used the office for personal purposes,” Lundeen said in a text message to The Denver Post.

While Boebert, who represents the 3rd District and is running for election in the 4th, did not sign on to the letter, she wrote on Facebook at about the same time that Williams had failed to lead the party after the primary election. That included failing to reach out to candidates and organizations to heal post-primary wounds, she wrote, and to offer support so Republicans could win in November.

She called the last month of party infighting and public dissent “embarrassing to watch.”

“An attempted, and likely contested, change in leadership at COGOP just 100 days out from Election Day will be disruptive and damaging, but Chairman Williams has put himself in this situation,” Boebert wrote. “I stand ready to publicly help and provide support to Republicans up and down the ballot, regardless of whether or not I agree with them on every issue. If Chairman Williams can’t do the same and refuses to show candidates he will, Republicans in Colorado and nationally will look in a different direction for leadership over the final 100 days.”

In an unsigned statement, state party officials sought to allay Boebert’s concerns, while lashing out at Lundeen for the call to resign.