{"id":25854,"date":"2024-09-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/supporters-of-embattled-colorado-gop-chair-dave-williams-vote-to-keep-him-in-his-job\/"},"modified":"2024-09-01T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T12:00:00","slug":"supporters-of-embattled-colorado-gop-chair-dave-williams-vote-to-keep-him-in-his-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/supporters-of-embattled-colorado-gop-chair-dave-williams-vote-to-keep-him-in-his-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporters of embattled Colorado GOP chair Dave Williams vote to keep him in his job"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Colorado
Colorado Republican Party Chair Dave Williams at the 2024 Republican 4th Congressional District Assembly on April 5 at the Colorado State Fairgrounds in Pueblo. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The faction of the Colorado Republican Party supporting embattled state chair Dave Williams gathered at a church in Castle Rock on Saturday to reaffirm him as the legitimate head of the state GOP.<\/p>\n

The meeting was a direct rebuke to a gathering of Williams\u2019 opponents Aug. 24 in Brighton, in which they voted to oust him.<\/p>\n

In a call to action urging Republican Central Committee members to attend the Aug. 31 meeting, Williams wrote, \u201cThis past Saturday we witnessed an attempted coup of our legally elected grassroots leadership. Are you willing to let a fringe minority faction of the Uniparty be your voice and the voice for over 900,000 Colorado Republicans?\u201d<\/p>\n

A reporter for CPR News attempted to attend the Castle Rock meeting, but was told it was closed to the media. Security guards blocked journalists from entering the building or standing outside in the church parking lot.<\/p>\n

According to a livestream of the vote at Saturday\u2019s meeting, only ten people voted in favor of replacing Williams, while there were 191.5 votes to reject the actions of the previous week\u2019s meeting in Brighton. (Some central committee members get fractional votes.)<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that happened last weekend was a complete charade,\u201d said former state Sen. Ted Harvey. He called the opponents\u2019 meeting an illegal pep rally and told attendees in Castle Rock that Williams simply does what the party\u2019s central committee wants.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe works for you all.\u201d<\/p>\n

A party rift with no end in sight<\/div>\n

This is now the second week in a row that a faction of the Colorado GOP has gathered for a vote on Williams\u2019 leadership. Each side boycotted the other\u2019s meeting, arguing that to attend would legitimize an improper vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s meeting was not a legitimate meeting because Dave Williams is no longer state party chair,\u201d said Lois Landraf of Fountain, a former Republican state representative and current member of the party\u2019s central committee. She attended last week\u2019s meeting where she also served as a proxy for several current lawmakers who all cast votes to remove Williams.<\/p>\n

That vote appears to have changed little regarding the GOP\u2019s day to day operations on the ground. Williams remains in charge of the party\u2019s bank accounts, social media and email lists among other things.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 detractors say his divisiveness and hard right stances, as well as attacks on other Republicans, and his handling of party finances are hurting Republican candidates up and down the ballot. However, the dueling meetings and disputed votes mean the intraparty fight that has been building for months is likely to continue indefinitely.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Bremer filed a complaint in El Paso County on behalf of the state GOP accusing Williams of being in breach of his contract because he still controls the party mechanics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to finish up our actions in court. What happened today makes no difference,\u201d Bremer told CPR News of Saturday\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s been using the party money and we hope to bring that to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Republican Congressional Committee said last week that it recognizes Bremer as chair, but the Republican National Committee has yet to weigh in. Bremer told CPR News he doesn\u2019t expect the RNC to recognize a chair until after the courts sort things out.<\/p>\n

During Saturday\u2019s meeting, some of the participants blasted the NRCC for siding with Williams\u2019 opponents and attendees voted unanimously to declare that the NRCC has no authority in the matter.<\/p>\n

To his supporters, Williams is a \u2018Make America Great,\u2019 \u2018America-first\u2019 leader<\/div>\n

Republican Dana Bonham came to the Castle Rock meeting in a BMW convertible wrapped with an image of a bald eagle and an array of conservative slogans, from \u201cDon’t tread on me\u201d and \u201cIn God we trust\u201d to \u201cLet’s go Brandon\u201d and \u201cMake America great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonham isn\u2019t on the central committee so she didn\u2019t have a vote but said she was there to support Williams.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s a Make America Great, America-first candidate and he’s done an excellent job,\u201d Bonham told CPR News as she left the church. \u201cWe have RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) within our own Republican Party that we are fighting, unfortunately. Instead of fighting the real battle, we are forced to fight these little divisions here, but we’re not going to be distracted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonham said that for too long establishment Republicans have tried to appease people in the political middle. Williams, she believes, is charting a new course that will help reestablish the party in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have momentum going and it’s time to give him a chance. It’s time to give the America-first people a chance. We’ve given the RINOs enough chances and they’ve blown it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado Republican Party Chair Dave Williams at the 2024 Republican 4th Congressional District Assembly on April 5 at the Colorado State Fairgrounds in Pueblo. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)cca The faction of the Colorado Republican Party supporting embattled state chair Dave Williams gathered at a church in Castle Rock on Saturday to reaffirm him as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25855,"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-25854","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\/25854","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=25854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25854"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}