A Colorado GOP embroiled in turmoil

[Music] good morning Colorado you're listening to the Daily sunup the daily sunup podcast is a conversation with the Colorado Sun see our trust indicators at Colorado sun.com [Music] ethics it's Wednesday August 14th today there are just a few months left before the 2024 election but the Colorado GOP is embroiled in turmoil because of its chairman Dave Williams Colorado Sun political reporters Jesse Paul and Brian een break down why some in the party are so mad at Williams and provide an update on the effort to remove him from the party's top leadership post before you begin elevation Music Festival is back join us in Alma Colorado August 16th to 17th for an unforgettable weekend of top tier music against stunning Mountain business enjoy worldclass performances and immerse yourself in the beauty of the highest Incorporated Town North America don't miss out visit elevation musicfest tocom for more information [Music] now let's go back in time with some Colorado history in August 1993 Pope John Paul II visited Denver for the 8th World Youth Day drawing Catholics from around the globe President Clinton welcomed the pope who met with him at Regus University the pope toured in his Pope mobile greeted crowds at the Mile High Stadium and celebrated mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception he led a prayer vigil and mass at Cherry Creek State Park where 375,000 people gathered marking Colorado's largest event to date the 4-day visit left coloradans awed and inspired by the Pope's [Music] presence before we continue do you want to help the world and your wallet from now until August 30th when you open a new First Bank checking account you'll help save bees conserve water and plant trees open a First Bank checking account today learn more by visiting efirstbank.com sgreen First Bank banking for good FDIC certain restrictions and requirements apply see any First Bank branch for [Music] details next our future story good morning and welcome to the Daily sunup I'm Brian een a politics reporter here at the Sun and I'm joined by my colleague politics reporter Jesse Paul good morning Jesse morning so today we're going to be talking about all the turmoil in the Colorado Republican party as opponents of chairman Dave Williams seek to remove him from his leadership post Jesse let's start with some of the background like what's the backstory here how long has Dave Williams been chairman and and what's kind of gone wrong over the last several months that has leading to people to try and take him out yeah so Dave Williams was a former state representative and he was elected chairman of the Colorado GOP in March 2023 uh kind of on the heels of a pretty disastrous 2022 election for republicans and and he was among a slate of candidates all of them pretty far right leaning and who won you know in in this contest to kind of lead the party forward with the promise of hey let's let's kind of return to relevancy in Colorado and his plan to do that was to go further right than the Republican Party had ever gone before to kind of weed out people who he thought were too conservative rhinos Republicans in name only and push forward kind of his brand of politics but almost immediately he started to face criticism because the fundraising under his leadership was was pretty lackluster and so much so that the party couldn't pay him or other staffers and so it ran like this really Bare Bones operation and then the criticism really intensified around the start of this year when he decided to run for Congress in the fifth congressional district and started using biry resources to really help his campaign uh both the email list and sending out mailers and using money and then there's been other stuff that's happened too so in April people might remember that the chairman Williams had a Colorado son reporter Sandra fish who has since retired tossed out of the state Pary assembly down in peblo the party also sent out this homophobic email during PR pride month calling for people to burn pride flag so was really controversial and then for the first time in recent memory of ever that the party endorsed a bunch of candidates in competitive primary elections and of the 18 candidates endorsed by the party only four actually won so was a pretty big defeat and embarrassing moment for the Colorado GOP and so in the wake of all this folks have been pretty frustrated with with chairman Williams and have really started to say all right it it it's time for him to go interesting so what's happening with with this effort to remove him so Todd Watkins who's the vice chair of the El Paso County Republican party and Nancy Pelosi H not to be confused with Nancy Pelosi the the democratic congresswoman who's the chair of the of the Jefferson County Republican party started Gathering signatures to force a special meeting of the Colorado GOP Central Committee which is about 400 people to consider whether to remove chairman Williams and they gathered the necessary signatures which is about a quarter of the Central Committee uh and turned it into the state party the state party said actually we can't verify any of these signatures so it's not worth it uh that Watkins Pelosi group decided to go forward with the meeting anyways the state GOP filed a lawsuit to stop the meeting from happening a judge initially said yeah that this meeting shouldn't happen and then backtracked when he got some more information and uh Watkins and Pelosi hired a really high-powered lawyer so that was all happened in recent weeks and now they have scheduled an August 24th meeting in Brighton to decide whether or not or to take a vote about whether or not to remove chairman Williams and it would take 60% of either those present or the entire Central Committee there's there's some uh differing opinions about what the bylaws say on that to to remove chairman Williams but the C GOP is saying we're not going to recognize any vote that's taken there anyways and we have to wait for this August 31st meeting to actually consider all this stuff so it's a little bit legal berky but there is going to be this vote on August 24th that should tell us you know whether or not there is really that much support to remove chairman Williams man that is a that is a mess what are you expecting to happen with this first meeting coming up on the 24th so I think you know you're going to have uh assuming that they have a third of the Central Committee which is considered a quorum to actually hold the meeting you're going to have a vote to remove chairman Williams and I think there's a pretty strong chance that that they get the either at least 60% of those press and potentially 60% of everyone and then if they have that vote to remove him there's going to be a vote on who should replace him and uh assuming that happens you know and a replacement is is chosen I'm not sure what's going to happen with the current state of the goop you know that the chairman Williams has already said that he's not going to recognize any vote that's taken on the 24th so I would probably anticipate this stuff going to court but uh it's a pretty interesting situation where there's kind of this power struggle for the top of the state Republican party yeah and there's already been you know a court battle over whether they can they can even meet at all so if they actually vote to remove them you you better believe there's going to be be more of a fight to come there so then what's what what do you think's going to happen at this other meeting on on the 31st though assuming again that they uh don't recognize the results of the 24th meeting I think you're going to see a bunch of stuff happen at the 31st meeting first of all um chairman Williams and his allies have proposed a bylaw Amendment to the to the state parties bylaws that would make it harder to call a meeting a special meeting which is almost always or for use for removing the chairman or removing a party officer so it would add a bunch of hurdles onto doing that including like a form that would be set up by the GOP it would set up an appeals process that could postpone uh the the holding of the meeting potentially indefinitely depending on how you read the rules uh so that would require two-thirds of those present to surpass it and then also the the party has said that we might take up you know the the question of whether or not party officers should be removed or you know I don't know if that's going to happen or not it depends on whether or not they recognize the effort in the first place the leadership of the party has pretty broad say over whether or not to actually bring up items on the agenda so it it's it's a little bit of a mess here right I mean it's a it's a big distraction heading into the November election and there's a lot riding on that for Republicans yes so I mean on the one hand as an observer there's a lot of Palace Intrigue right that that's really uh entertaining if you're into that sort of thing but but this has real world effects right like how has this affecting Republican campaigns Republican parties and political parties across the country have had kind of diminishing impacts in recent years as campaign Finance dollars or campaign dollars have really shifted to Super Pacs and independent expenditure committees and nonprofits so parties aren't as important as they used to be but they still play a pretty important role in terms of organiz say volunteers and helping steer donors in One Direction or the other they coordinate on messaging they have some mail discounts that that apply and they also oftentimes will coordinate between National groups and candidates on the local group level and and try and kind of get everybody on the same page the campaigns that we've talked to have said that's not happening while the Colorado GOP is kind of dealing with all this mess so in addition to you know not having that kind of up and down the ballot coordination of volunteers they say you know they're not really getting donor lists they're not really getting technical support uh thing things that would traditionally happen and they also say that they might not even work with the GOP if if if that was even offered because they don't trust how the money would be spent if they were to be able to do joint funds raising things just because the way that chairman Williams used the state party account to help himself and his allies in the primaries chairman Williams lost his primary I should probably mention that too but you know there's a lot of sour grapes right since 14 of the 18 folks folks who were endorsed by the GOP lost in reality you know the the folks who are the general election candidates almost universally are the folks that the GOP was working against in the primary so there's no love loss between these folks and it's just kind of a a bad situation heading into into November yeah I I actually really like this quote you had from uh from Paul line who's the top Republican in the state senate uh who made the comment of you know when you get everyone in a boat rowing in the same direction that's you know that's what you want to see and then then he said the carado GOP is not even in the boat right um and that just speaks to as you said like they are not they are not on the same page here and we'll see we'll see how things pay play out in the next couple weeks thanks so much Jesse and we'll uh we'll all be following your coverage at Colorado sun.com thank you listeners we'll have more on this [Music] soon finally here a few stories that you should know about today 4day school weeks have become a popular lore for Colorado districts struggling to attract and retain teachers they're also a way to stretch thin budgets but a new report from the nonpartisan Keystone policy Center shows that reduced classroom time has taken a toll on students in districts that have adopted shorter weeks hampering their performance 4-day School weeks are widely used among Colorado's rural districts but more large districts are considering them the Keystone report comes as some color of superintendents are defending 4-day weeks and pushing back against claims they are bad for kids a dir of Performing Arts rehearsal space in Denver is encouraging new connections among the city's small theater companies which are banding together for survival as rents go up across the city some troops are able to rehearse thanks only to competing Arts organizations during the pandemic The Operators of buntport theater made rehearsal space available to other performers free of charge now they charge just enough to cover the cost of util ities at the same time some other troops are isoing traditional theaters and scaling down their Productions in the hope of remaining solvent Tri-State generation has endured years of harsh criticism from environmental groups and departing Co-op members over its slow pace of embracing Alternative Energy but now the westminster-based utility is being praised for its recent commitment to burning less coal the utility that serves four western states will link to hundreds of megawatts of new solar capacity by the end of 2025 and UTI's new 5-year plan calls for further investments in wind farms and battery storage as a way of curbing greenhouse gas [Music] emissions for more information on all of these stories visit our website Colorado sun.com and don't forget to tune in again next time now a quick message from our team hi I'm Tamar Chung and I write about business and technology for the Colorado Sun a large part of my beat is the Colorado economy and covering the ups and downs of losing a job finding a job running a business all that fun stuff you'll find coverage every Saturday in what's working and it's free because we feel all coloradans need to know this stuff in order to stay better informed you know that's how we roll here by the way and that's why we appreciate your support to help keep the Colorado Sun sustainable if you'd like to become a member you can just go to Colorado sun.com jooin today thanks