Vote to oust Colorado Republicans' embattled party chairman was invalid, judge rules

DENVER — The embattled leader of the Colorado Republican Party will remain at the GOP’s helm after an El Paso County District Court judge ruled that a vote to remove Dave Williams in August was “void and of no effect.”

The vote taken to oust Williams at an Aug. 24 meeting of the central committee in Brighton failed to meet the proper supermajority threshold required, Judge Eric Bentley wrote in a ruling issued Wednesday evening. That ruling renders a subsequent vote to replace Williams moot.

And the judgment effectively would settle the leadership question for the party during the final stretch of the election season, pending any appeal. The party is at a historic low point in the state, with no Republican holding statewide office, a superminority of seats in the state House of Representatives and a one-seat buffer against superminority status in the state Senate.

Reached for comment via text message, Williams responded with a link to a party email sent Thursday morning celebrating the ruling — and vowing vengeance against the leaders of the “fringe majority faction” that sought his ouster.

“Please know that your true State Party Officers will seek all legal accountability, in and out of court, against (Todd) Watkins, (Eli) Bremer, and those who worked in the shadows to sow chaos and orchestrate an unlawful coup against the majority will,” the email from Williams stated.

Watkins, the vice chair of the El Paso County GOP, called last month’s meeting to oust Williams. Attendees elected Bremer, an Olympian and former U.S. Senate candidate, to replace Williams.

“While we will seek legal accountability against these failed usurpers, the rest of our State Party must unite to defeat the radical Democrats with the remaining time we have left before November,” Williams’ email continued.

Bremer did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday morning. Watkins said they were still evaluating the ruling and would issue a formal statement later in the day.

The GOP faction seeking to oust Williams called the Aug. 24 meeting after months of infighting and division over Williams’ leadership. That included the party sending an anti-LGBTQ+ message to the GOP email list during Pride Month, endorsing Republican candidates during the primary campaign and using party resources to bolster a few of those campaigns — including Williams’ own campaign in his failed bid for the 5th Congressional District nomination.

According to court documents, 182.6 central committee members or their proxies attended the Aug. 24 meeting, out of 414 total members. (GOP bylaws allow fractional representation.) The anti-Williams faction needed a three-fifths vote to oust him as party chair.

They thought the party bylaws were ambiguous on whether the three-fifths requirement applied to all committee members or just those present.

The meeting attendees voted to interpret it as the latter. The judge disagreed.

The judge’s interpretation meant about 250 votes would be needed to oust Williams and the rest of his leadership team — or more votes than were even available at the Aug. 24 meeting.

“A minority of members did not have the authority to eliminate the requirement of a supermajority vote and thus give themselves the power to do what the Bylaws forbade them from doing,” Bentley wrote in his decision. The subsequent vote thus did not comply with GOP bylaws and was “void and of no effect.”

Williams, a former three-term member of the Colorado House of Representatives, was elected to lead the party for a two-year term in March 2023.

By the time the vote to oust him arrived, he had faced calls to step down from nearly all of Colorado’s Republican candidates for Congress. After the vote, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which helps GOP congressional candidates, said it would recognize Bremer as the chair.

A spokesperson for that committee did not immediately return a request for comment about the ruling.

Bremer, in claiming chairmanship of the party, sought to settle the matter proactively by filing the lawsuit that opened the case. While the judge dismissed the meat of the claims in Williams favor, there are still some secondary matters that could head to court in October if the suit remains in play.

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