January 23, 2023
From El Paso County and other Colorado Republican Committee members

1-24-2023 More Information from KBB about the 1-31-2023 Special Meeting🔗

For more information about the situation, see THE EL PASO FIASCO.🔗

Dear Members of the State Central Committee,

We object to the purpose of this meeting.

The purpose of this meeting violates Colorado Revised Statues 1-3-106, 1-3-102 (2)(d), and 1-3-103, and our own party bylaws with respect to the proper way to resolve disputes and controversies.

While the state party chair is empowered to call a special meeting anytime, we object to what the SCC is being asked to do and take issue with the state chair keeping anonymous most of the faceless accusers within the SCC who failed to reach the required 25% petition threshold to force a special meeting on their own.

The El Paso County Republicans will seek any and all legal options to prevent the state party chair and SCC from unlawfully preempting the affairs of our county and moving to DISENFRANCHISE Republican precinct committee persons who have a legal vote.

The state party chair has chosen to drag the entire SCC into a county conflict because a small group of disgruntled people lost the party leadership election two years ago and now wish to strip voting rights from properly seated PCP’s so they can orchestrate a coup in next month’s county leadership elections.

To interfere with the organization and processes of a county party predicated on the baseless, unfounded, and untruthful claims of 13 disgruntled individuals — two of whom are not even members of this body, and one who is the state chair’s father — is beyond the pale. 

If fairness and impartiality is of primary concern for these 13 and the state chair, the genial and filial nature of the relationship between the complainants and the state chair should render this call invalid… or at least demand a true neutral individual to facilitate the special meeting.

It should also be of grave concern to the committee membership that this litany of complaints and accusations is devoid of any sort of proof or evidence. 

Without supporting documentation or evidence, these are nothing more than the angry ramblings of a small group of disaffected individuals who are seeking to co-opt this SCC in order to punish the county party according to their own satisfaction. 

These so-called charges are not only false and illegitimate, but they are also libelous and deliberately framed to assassinate Chairwoman Tonkins’ character.

Throughout Chairwoman Tonkins’ tenure, there has arisen a demonstrable pattern whereby this small group of disgruntled individuals attempts to force the SCC to undermine the majority will of the El Paso County Central Committee when they fail to convince their neighbors and fellow county Republicans to follow their failed agenda. What’s even more troubling is their tangential efforts to enlist the liberal media to smear the party and make everyone miserable.

They continually brought complaints to this very body and were denied.  Yet, here we are again. 

They refuse to heed the decisions of the SCC just as they refuse to listen to their neighbors and fellow Republicans in El Paso County. 

It should be shocking that the state chair would enable such disruptive, unruly malcontents.

What is lost in these attempts at sabotage is the measurable success of the El Paso County Republican Party over the last four years. 

By every metric that matters, the county party has exceeded expectations and the performance of past iterations of party leadership.  Despite unrelenting attacks from these false accusers who refuse to accept election results, the El Paso County Republican Party has grown GOP membership and participation to levels that have not been seen in a long time. 

Historically, El Paso County Republican Party precinct leader membership stagnated at around 30% vacancy.  But during Chairwoman Tonkins’ tenure, our precinct leader population has swelled to nearly 85% capacity. 

Furthermore, Chairwoman Tonkins brought the party out of debt by accruing fundraising surpluses and cutting administrative fat that only served to waste donor dollars. The county party is in the black and will continue being financially viable in the next several years.

Clearly, the El Paso County Republican Party is a remarkable success story in what appears to be an otherwise declining GOP. 

This is directly due to Chairwoman Tonkins’ leadership: Voters have returned to the Republican party, become motivated, donated, and gotten involved. The fact is that the El Paso County Republican Party is more unified now than it has ever been despite the chaos the current party election deniers have brought about.

The same cannot be said for the complainants who have variously held leadership roles in the county party over the past several decades. 

A studied analysis of the performance of the county party over the past several years (prior to the current leadership) suggests that a premium was placed on minimizing membership and participation. 

One cannot avoid seeing a correlation between the past practice of maintaining limited participation in the party and this unprecedented attempt to remove legitimately seated precinct committee persons at next week’s special SCC meeting.

This is absolutely contrary to the political system in Colorado where the process is meant to involve as much of the population as possible. 

Chairwoman Tonkins has embraced the intent of this process and promulgated widespread membership and participation.  In contrast, the complainants have divorced themselves from this effort and formed a rogue organization bent on damaging the performance of the El Paso County Republican Party.

In conclusion, the complaint against Chairwoman Tonkins and the El Paso County Republican Party is meritless, baseless, unfounded, untrue, and libelous. 

Any issues existing in El Paso County should be dealt with locally.  In fact, state and county bylaws demand this to be the case, yet no such complaint has been brought to the county committee. 

At best, this complaint and the attendant special meeting amount to a biased and incomplete investigation into the one-sided and indignant ramblings of a disgruntled few whose popularity and influence in the party have been eclipsed by a motivated and well-meaning majority. 

That our state chair would call a special meeting to interfere with a county party over such vapid and feeble claims should be concerning. 

When one considers the genial and filial relationships the state chair has with the complainants, it is disturbing that she would not only call such a meeting but insist that she chair it. 

We, the undersigned Republican Party members of El Paso County demand that this meeting be deemed out of order and immediately cancelled, and we urge you, the State Central Committee members, to do the same. 

Do not allow such a grotesque overreach and abuse of power be made into a precedent that can and will be used against other county organizations.