{"id":40922,"date":"2022-04-27T15:57:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T21:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/judge-rules-against-state-lawmaker-seeking-to-have-lets-go-brandon-on-republican-primary-ballot\/"},"modified":"2022-04-27T21:57:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T21:57:27","slug":"judge-rules-against-state-lawmaker-seeking-to-have-lets-go-brandon-on-republican-primary-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/judge-rules-against-state-lawmaker-seeking-to-have-lets-go-brandon-on-republican-primary-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rules against state lawmaker seeking to have \u2018Let\u2019s Go Brandon\u2019 on Republican primary ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rep.
Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs, speaks on the House floor Dec. 2, 2020. (Faith Miller\/Colorado Newsline file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Republican congressional candidate Dave Williams will not have \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u201d appear as a nickname on the June primary ballot, a Denver District Court judge ruled Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpon consideration of all of this testimony, evidence, briefing, argument and authority the Court held a hearing today by videoconference and entered on the record findings of fact, conclusions of law and an order denying relief on the petition,\u201d District Court judge Andrew McCallin wrote.<\/p>\n

Williams, a state representative who is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn in Colorado\u2019s 5th Congressional District, sought to have \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u201d appear as part of his name on the primary ballot<\/a>, claiming that it is a widely known nickname. The phrase originated last fall as an epithet against President Joe Biden when a reporter misunderstood a \u201cF*** Joe Biden\u201d crowd chant at a NASCAR race. The reporter was interviewing race winner Brandon Brown at the time and thought the crowd was cheering for him.<\/p>\n

Since then, the phrase has been used by Republican critics of the president, including Rep. Lauren Boebert.<\/p>\n

Williams sued earlier this month to have his name appear as \u201cDave \u2018Let\u2019s Go Brandon\u2019 Williams\u201d on the ballot after Secretary of State Jena Griswold denied his request. Candidates are allowed to have nicknames on the ballot as long as they don\u2019t reference the name of a political party. McCallin, however, ruled that Griswold exercised appropriate authority when denying the nickname request on the basis that the phrase is a slogan, even though Williams had been using it as a nickname since at least early April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court\u2019s decision today affirms that the content of the ballot is not a place for political gamesmanship. As Secretary of State, I will always protect Colorado voters\u2019 right to accessible elections and that includes a ballot that is fair and transparent. My Office will continue to uphold Colorado Election law and safeguard voters\u2019 right to make their voice heard,\u201d Griswold said in a statement after the decision.<\/p>\n

Williams plans to appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court. The timeline is tricky, as Griswold\u2019s office needs to certify the primary ballot, including how candidate names appear, by Friday.<\/p>\n

He also attacked the court when announcing the appeal plans. In a statement, Williams said that if the higher court does not hear his appeal, it is \u201cderelict\u201d in its duty and called for state lawmakers to remove the justices\u2019 salaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Colorado Supreme Court should do its job and hear this appeal because the corrupt SOS shouldn\u2019t be allowed to violate the rule of law,\u201d he said. \u201cThe district judge agreed that my nickname was in compliance with state law but then granted authority to the SOS where none exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Primary elections are on June 28.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado Rep. Dave Williams says he plans to appeal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,2336,266,28,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-state-officials","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40922","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=40922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40922"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}