Colorado judge rules that vote to remove Dave Williams as state GOP chair violated party bylaws

By Ernest Luning Sep 26, 2024

from Colorado Politics

A district court judge ruled late Wednesday that the faction of Colorado Republicans who tried to oust Dave Williams as state GOP chairman failed to follow party bylaws, effectively ending the months-long bid by Williams' opponents to take control of the state party.

El Paso County District Judge Eric Bentley dismissed portions of a motion brought by Eli Bremer, who claimed to have been elected to replace Williams as state GOP chairman at a special meeting of party officials last month in Brighton, declaring that Williams' critics didn't meet the 60% threshold required to change party leadership.

A trial remains scheduled for mid-October in Bentley's Colorado Springs courtroom to resolve other matters surrounding the dispute, but the Colorado Republican Party said in an email that Wednesday's ruling settled the most important question by determining that Williams is the party's "only legitimate chairman," contrary to what the party characterized as "these failed usurpers."

Williams argued that it would take a vote of 60% of the entire, roughly 400-member state central committee to remove a state party officer, while Bremer and his allies maintained that party bylaws only required that 60% of those central committee present at a meeting had to support firing an officer.

Less than half of the party's state central committee members attended an Aug. 24 meeting in Brighton, where Williams' detractors voted by a wide margin to remove Williams and two other party officers, Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman and Secretary Anna Ferguson. At the same meeting, Republicans elected Bremer, a former El Paso County GOP chairman, as chairman and picked former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn and former Mesa County GOP Chairman Kevin McCarney as state party vice chair and secretary, respectively.

Williams dismissed the meeting that elected Bremer as "fraudulent," saying its participants were intent on damaging former President Donald Trump's chances in the November election. A week later, a slightly larger number of Williams' supporters met in Castle Rock, where Williams and his fellow party officers received an overwhelming vote of support.

The judge agreed with Williams interpretation of the bylaws, ruling that the GOP's supermajority requirement hadn't been met at the meeting in Brighton.

"It should be clear, in this context, that 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 a 21-page order.

Bentley found that interpreting the bylaws the way Bremer and his backers proposed would permit a small minority of central committee members — as few as 20% — to oust party leadership, an outcome he said was "hard to believe" what the bylaws' frames intended.

“The vote to remove Williams, Scheppelman, and Ferguson was not in accordance with the CRC’s bylaws, and it is accordingly void and of no effect,” Bentley wrote.

Bremer told Colorado Politics he was consulting with attorneys in the wake of the ruling.

Williams declined immediate comment but pointed to the email sent Wednesday morning by the state GOP announcing the ruling. In it, the party described its intention to settle scores with Bremer and other Williams foes, including El Paso County Vice Chairman Todd Watkins, who called the meeting to remove Williams.

"Please know that your true State Party Officers will seek all legal accountability, in and out of court, against Watkins, Bremer, and those who worked in the shadows to sow chaos and orchestrate an unlawful coup against the majority will," the state GOP said.

"The majority of our State Party always knew that none of the officers were rightfully removed, or replaced, by a fringe minority faction just because they screamed the loudest while the liberal press and crooked pundits carried they divisive message."

The party added that it was time to "unite to defeat the radical Democrats with the remaining time we have left before November."