{"id":25699,"date":"2024-09-15T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-15T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-gop-leadership-battle-is-scheduled-to-go-to-trial-in-october\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:24:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:24:58","slug":"colorado-gop-leadership-battle-is-scheduled-to-go-to-trial-in-october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-gop-leadership-battle-is-scheduled-to-go-to-trial-in-october\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado GOP leadership battle is scheduled to go to trial in October"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dave
Dave Williams speaks during a Colorado GOP chair debate sponsored by the Republican Women of Weld on Feb. 25, 2023, in a pizza restaurant in Hudson. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

There may be an answer before Election Day as to who is the real chairman of the Colorado GOP.<\/p>\n

A judge in El Paso County last week set a two-and-a-half day trial starting Oct. 14 in the lawsuit filed by Eli Bremer seeking to dislodge Dave Williams from the party\u2019s top post and force him to relinquish the party\u2019s resources. Both Bremer and Williams claim to currently be chairman of the Colorado GOP.<\/p>\n

The date of the trial won\u2019t leave much time for the outcome to have an effect on the Nov. 5 election. Ballots start being mailed to voters Oct. 11. Most television ad air time and mailers will have been planned and booked by then.<\/p>\n

Still, the outcome of the legal drama will chart the future direction of the state Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Williams, a former state representative, was elected chairman of the Colorado GOP in March 2023. But after a string of controversial decisions \u2013 including using state party resources for his failed congressional campaign this year, endorsing in Republican primaries and sending out anti-LGBTQ emails \u2013 a faction of the Colorado GOP\u2019s central committee has sought his ouster.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 24, Williams\u2019 opponents held a meeting where they voted to remove and replace Williams with Bremer, an ex-Olympian and former chairman of the El Paso County GOP who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2022.<\/p>\n

Williams and his allies have called the Aug. 24 meeting a sham and refused to recognize the results.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for Williams sought to push the trial until after Election Day, arguing they were too busy with personal and professional commitments to prepare for a trial before Nov. 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there isn\u2019t really a need for speed,\u201d said Michael Molina, another attorney for Williams, claiming that most of the \u201cheavy lifting\u201d for the election had already been completed.<\/p>\n

El Paso County District Court Judge Eric Bentley, however, sided with Bremer\u2019s attorney, Chris Murray, and said the case should be resolved sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears self-evident that the Republican State Committee cannot function as intended without its leadership issue resolved,\u201d Bentley said. \u201cIt is necessary in order for the party apparatus to function as intended \u2013 as a state party \u2013 before the election that this issue be resolved before the election.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state party\u2019s campaign finance reports don\u2019t indicate the Colorado GOP under Williams\u2019 leadership is doing much to help its general election candidates as November approaches. There have been some emails sent out and a few Zoom calls held, but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n

Many campaigns don\u2019t trust Williams, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, which would normally coordinate with the party, is siding with Bremer in the leadership dispute.<\/p>\n

The Republican National Committee so far hasn\u2019t waded into the dispute as it goes through the courts. But there is precedent for the RNC settling leadership squabbles; earlier this year the national party chose who would lead the state GOP in Michigan.<\/p>\n

The controversy comes at a critical time for Colorado Republicans. The party\u2019s candidates could use all the help they can get in an election year where the GOP is trying to win back some power at the state and federal levels after years of defeat. Republicans almost certainly can\u2019t win back majorities in Colorado, but the party can bolster its ranks to be a more effective check on the Democratic juggernaut.<\/p>\n

One issue at play in the El Paso County lawsuit is that David Pigott, another attorney for Williams, argued in court this week that he is the real attorney for the Colorado GOP, not Murray, who filed Bremer\u2019s lawsuit on behalf of the party.<\/p>\n

Pigott is seeking to get the case tossed by arguing that technical point.<\/p>\n

Pigott is representing Williams and the Colorado GOP in a separate lawsuit filed in Arapahoe County by Williams against his opponents, who are being represented by Murray. In that case, Williams is seeking to invalidate the results of the Aug. 24 meeting where he was removed from his post as chair.<\/p>\n

Judge Bentley ruled that Murray can represent the party for now while the case is being adjudicated.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado GOP Chairman Eli Bremer is seeking to dislodge Chairman Dave Williams from the party\u2019s top post and to force him to relinquish the party\u2019s resources<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79056,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25699\/revisions\/79056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25699"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}