GOP chair Dave Williams voted out by party members in meeting he calls “illegitimate”

Updated 10:19 p.m., Aug. 24, 2024

Members of the state Republican Party drove from across Colorado to a church in Brighton on Saturday morning, where they voted to remove state party chairman Dave Williams from his leadership position. They also voted to replace the party’s vice-chair and secretary. 

The vote was 161.66 votes to remove Williams, with 12 opposed. (Some of those voting only get fractional votes). Only members of the state party’s central committee and their proxies were allowed to cast votes.

The party members present elected Eli Bremer as the interim chairman. Bremer, a former U.S. Senate candidate and El Paso County GOP chair, described himself as a temporary leader to get the party through the November election.

Williams dismissed the meeting as 'illegal', possibly setting up a legal showdown over the leadership of the party.

It’s the most tumultuous chapter yet in the endlessly controversial tenure of Williams, who took the helm of the state GOP in 2023, and has angered many in the party for his hard right stances and willingness to attack other Republicans. 

“We have a chance today, fellow Republicans, to chart a new course, to throw off the bindings of corruption and steady our party for this election season,” said Michael J. Allen, district attorney for the 4th Judicial District, as he moved for Williams’ removal.

Before the removal vote, a series of speakers lambasted Williams for what they said was a lack of leadership and an unwillingness to work with others. Several criticized him for his homophobic and transphobic messages. Many stood and applauded when a man spoke out against Williams for his call to “burn all the Pride flags.” Others said that Williams had simply failed to help Republicans win.

Williams continues to resist calls to step down. Even before Saturday’s vote, Williams said the Brighton meeting was illegitimate and vowed to stay in power. His allies said it was a “fake” takeover attempt by people who aren’t true Republicans — though the attendees included some of the most prominent and long-serving members of the party.

And even as the Brighton meeting to oust him was underway, Williams was part of a counter-attack at a separate gathering in Colorado Springs, where local party members tried to remove El Paso County vice-chair Todd Watkins, a key organizer in the drive to vote out Williams. However, that effort fell far short.

At the El Paso County meeting, Williams called the gathering in Brighton "illegal" and driven by personal vendettas. He accused Watkins and others on that side of attempting to start a Republican civil war.

"What sense does that make when we do need to help our nominees?" said Williams. And he complained any legal fight over leadership could drain party resources needed for the election. "That's money that's not going to House District 16. That's money that's not going to House District 18. That's money that's not going to various congressional seats that we need to win and maintain. These things are being done when we need to come together."

The Brighton meeting also voted to remove and replace vice chair Hope Scheppelman and secretary Anna Ferguson. None of the GOP leaders in question attended the meetings.

A schism in the offing

The day's events will leave the party mired in uncertainty with just over two months until the general election. 

Bremer vowed to assume immediate control of the party.

“You're going to get exactly zero seconds’ downtime,” Bremer promised people at the meeting. “We’ll have the phones answered, first thing Monday morning, ‘Welcome to the Colorado Republican Party, we’re here to help you.’”

But with Williams showing no sign of accepting Saturday’s vote, the Colorado Republican Party could find itself looking a bit like the Catholic Church during the Western Schism of the 14th century, with two rival leaders both claiming power. While the church split between the cities of Rome and Avignon, Bremer and Williams will be operating from the same place: Colorado Springs.

National Republicans started choosing sides quickly, supporting Bremer as the new chair.

"It is our understanding that today's Colorado GOP vote is in accordance with party bylaws. We will recognize the new party leadership and look forward to working with them to grow the Republican House majority," wrote Delanie Bomar, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC. The NRCC is tasked with winning U.S. House campaigns.

Still, it may take weeks for the courts or even the Republican National Committee to sort out the power struggle. A similar dispute over efforts to remove Michigan’s controversial GOP chair Kristina Karamo ended with both the courts and the RNC affirming that she had been properly voted out. Karamo, however, is still appealing. 

Michigan’s drawn out fight suggests Colorado Republicans could be looking at a period of limbo just when candidates up and down the ballot can normally count on their state party for help. Former state Rep. Lois Landgraf said she didn’t know why anyone would want to be chair, given how difficult the climate is for Republicans in Colorado.

“This party is pretty far down there, and [the new chair is] going to have to drag it back up, raise money, do their job, do it right,” she said as she checked people into the Brighton meeting. 

Williams and the others “have run the Republican Party into the ground, and we're tired of that. We need our party back so we can win,” she said. But she was hopeful, she added.

The GOP recently reported raising just $13,000 in the month of July. And the state party’s dysfunction could prove costly.

While Colorado isn’t competitive in the presidential election, Republicans are hoping to flip a key congressional seat in the eighth district. The Republican candidate in that race is Gabe Evans — whom Williams spent party resources campaigning against during the primary. Evans attended the Brighton meeting.

“We spent money that we don’t have fighting against [Evans], which is a suicide… mission,” said party member Steve Peck. “End the war on other Republicans.”

Republicans are at risk of losing ground in the statehouse, too. Any further losses in the state Senate could reduce Republicans to a super-minority in both legislative chambers, warned Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer.

A lack of state party support could be especially damaging to state-level campaigns, which can’t expect a lot of help from national funders. More than anything, this situation may make it harder for candidates to get voters and the media focused on their message instead of party dysfunction.

Karl Schneider, a long-time Republican volunteer and former vice-chair in El Paso county, said he hopes this is a new beginning for the state party.

“We hopefully have hit rock bottom and the Republican Party, like a phoenix, will rise from the ashes of insanity to be the purveyors of common sense,” he said. Schneider also called for Vicki Tonkins, the controversial chair of the GOP’s El Paso County chapter to also step down.

Fight could come down ambiguous wording in party bylaws

Ultimately, close to 90 percent of participants in the Brighton meeting voted for the removal of Williams and his allies. The organizers argue that is more than enough to fulfill the 60 percent threshold in party bylaws.

But Williams may argue that a removal vote actually requires 60 percent of the entire central committee, not just those participating in the meeting. That would have required roughly 240 votes or more, far beyond the total number of committee members who attended Saturday's meeting.

Cody LeBlanc, a Williams supporter from Fort Lupton and, said that it would be a bad idea to allow a lower standard for making changes to leadership.

“What is to stop… ‘my side’ of this party from doing the exact same thing once the leadership changes?” asked LeBlanc, who ran a series of overwhelmingly unpopular motions to stop the action. 

“It is a dangerous precedent to set,” he said. He praised Williams for embracing “grassroots” candidates, and another supporter said the GOP needed Williams’ “bold” style.

The Brighton meeting combined hours of parliamentary procedures and debates, polite questions about the rules and an airing of grievances and stinging insults about Williams and company. 

At times, the organizers struggled to accurately count the votes — since voting was done by standing up and raising fingers. One vote counter commented that it was difficult to get an exact number as people filed in and out of the church hall.

Williams’ allies have already scheduled a follow up meeting for Aug. 31 — which was preemptively declared canceled by the Brighton attendees. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of some of the proxy votes in Brighton was challenged during the meeting.

Shelli Shaw drove more than six hours from La Plata County, where she is former GOP chair, to act as a proxy voter. She raised her hand to remove Williams. 

“We've got to put this behind us by doing what is right, following process and procedure and then moving forward to get our Republicans, not only at the presidential level, but all down ballot, elected,” she said.

“If we continue to stay distracted by not taking care of this right now, then yes, we will be completely distracted moving into… elections in November.”

The Brighton voters chose Brita Horn, the former treasurer of Routt County, as their new vice chair; and Kevin McCarney, a former Mesa County party chair, as secretary.