For more information about the situation, see THE EL PASO FIASCO.🔗
January 30, 2023
By Todd Michael
Dear Individuals Posing as Republicans for Good Governance,
First of all, I want to thank you for proving our point.
This is in fact a controversy and the processes for determining controversies are clearly defined (you literally highlighted them below). While controversies don't need to be determined in 14 days (no one ever said or implied that...that was your misunderstanding) they do need to be presented within 14 days. That never happened. In fact, both the Pikes Peak United Republicans and KBB went to great pains to ensure that this special meeting was not being called to determine a controversy---KBB put that in writing.
We know why you all didn't want to call this a controversy--it's in your own highlights below: Because there is a process for handling controversies and you don't want to follow that process. You want to (and did) obtain special privilege from KBB to have a meeting to hijack the El Paso County Central Committee meeting in February. The lawful and legitimate avenues for presenting and resolving a controversy do not lend themselves to your agenda or desired outcomes, so you have gained unethical favor with KBB who will allow this.
Your email (below) admits that the bylaws do not allow any controversy to be considered by the COGOP CRC unless it was brought to the chair within two weeks. The point is that the "indictment" trafficked by the complainants and KBB does not indicate any dates or timelines for when most of the events occurred. Even the most recent of those events that are dated occurred over 30 days from when this complaint was filed.
Because the complaint lacks any provable existence of fact or jurisdiction, this matter should be dead on arrival. Your entire argument (if it can be called that) is an appeal to pathos...there isn't a shred of logic or legal propriety in any of it. Your special pleading proclaims that your situation is so unique that it demands that extraordinary exemptions to rules, bylaws, and laws be afforded in order that your case be resolved in your favor. If your peril is so imminent, why have you waited months to pursue a remedy? Is your situation so dire that we must forgo our bylaws and laws to accommodate your special pleading?
"Good Governance" is not abiding by laws and bylaws when it is convenient and dispensing with them when inconvenient or an impediment to a desired outcome. Your name is both ironic and oxymoronic given your particular bent. Suspending laws and affording special dispensation to groups or individuals because of relationships and associations they have with authority figures is the antithesis of good governance. It is more characteristic of an oligarchy or an autocracy, and furthest from a republican form of government.
Your name belies your agenda and your intentions. You proclaim "justice" and "law and order" and in the same breath strive to undo all of it by seeking special privilege. It's time to tell the truth. If you do not seize control of the El Paso County Central Committee meeting and disenfranchise several dozen specially targeted PCPs, you are outnumbered and will likely lose your sway in the party. You are changing rules, inventing rules, and corrupting the COGOP in order to retain your grasp on power...just like any tyrannical despot would.
LETTER FROM REPUBLICANS FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE -
Dear State Central Committee Members,
You may have recently received communication from the Save Colorado Project, an organization backing Vickie Tonkins. Instead of addressing the substance of the accusations regarding El Paso, the Save Colorado Project is trying to distract you, the members of the SCC, with incorrect information about the Colorado GOP CRC bylaws.
We'd like to clear it up.
They want you to now believe there is a controversy over the word controversy, in order to now claim the conflict in El Paso is not chaotic enough for the SCC to hear it.
We ask:
If the El Paso County conflict is not chaotic enough to be a controversy, then what would meet that standard? Keep in mind, the accusations made by Pikes Peak United Republicans includes threats to arrest or shoot Republican volunteers who try to solve issues in the county.
The Save Colorado Project is also attempting to claim that every controversy that comes before the SCC must be heard within 14 days of the alleged incident. They also want you to believe county-level options must be exhausted first before the SCC hears the matter.
While we heartily agree that it is good for anyone involved in a controversy to exhaust local county-level options first, the allegations of a 14-day deadline for an SCC meeting to occur caught our attention.
This would mean that the complainants had to:
1.) Exhaust all options at the county level
2.) File with the SCC
3.) Have a call for a special meeting with the SCC issued
4.) Hold the special meeting.
All within 14 days, from the moment of the alleged incident to the holding of a special SCC hearing.
The bylaws of the Colorado GOP do not require a nearly impossible 14-day deadline for an SCC meeting as claimed by the Save Colorado Project.
Let’s walk it through.
Save Colorado Project made this claim about the Colorado GOP bylaws:
“The obvious answer lies in Article XV D. of the state CC bylaws. That provision contains the two-week rule that circumscribes the state CC’s exercise of authority under C.R.S. sec. 1-3-106. It prohibits any controversy from being considered by the state CC if it is not brought to the state CC within two weeks after the underlying events occurred. The “indictment” does not provide information about when the alleged events occurred, let alone in relation to when they were brought to the attention of the state chair.”
That is not what the Colorado GOP CRC Bylaws require.
Check for yourself: Colorado GOP CRC Bylaws🔗 (The section below starts at the top of page 19)
“Article XV: Controversies”
“Section D. Procedure. A controversy must be submitted to the CRC Chairman within two weeks of the meeting in which the controversy arose, or if the controversy did not occur at a meeting, within two weeks of the reasonably determined state of the controversy. If no controversy is submitted by the two-week period deadline, any controversy or points of order regarding the controversy expire. In the event a controversy is appealed to the Executive Committee or CRC, the State Chairman may call a Special Meeting. The call may be made electronically and shall be sent no less than 3 days before the Special Meeting. The Special Meeting may be held electronically. Each party to the controversy may send materials to the Executive Committee or CRC members. The quorum for this Special Meeting shall be the members present. Proxies shall not be allowed. The only agenda item permitted at this Special Meeting shall be the determination of the controversy.”
This section of the Colorado GOP Bylaws appears to indicate that while the matter must be brought to the state chair's attention within 2 weeks, it does not give any deadline for it to also go before the SCC within 2 weeks.
Despite that, the Save Colorado Project makes this claim about this very bylaw above:
“It prohibits any controversy from being considered by the state CC if it is not brought to the state CC within two weeks after the underlying events occurred.”
This is simply untrue.
They are providing provably false information about the bylaws to attempt to claim a standard that would mean almost every single controversy that the SCC has ruled upon, for years, would have been out of bounds. Years of rulings, years of people presenting their cases, the SCC carefully weighing out matters, and years of votes being held would all be out of bounds. They want you to believe that they alone have somehow figured out some combination of words that disenfranchise hundreds of voters and volunteers, county party officers, and SCC members.
All while they do not address the substance of the accusations… because they don't want you to address the substance of the accusations either.
They want you to close your eyes and look away while every single county, every single Republican candidate running for office, continues to be harmed by the chaos, division, and yes, controversy, coming out El Paso County.
While the voters of Colorado do not look away, the Save Colorado Project wants YOU to look the other way.
We, the members of the SCC, must have the courage to deal with the substance of the accusations made by Pikes Peak United Republicans against the chairwoman of the El Paso County GOP.
Call to Action:
1.) Register to attend the Zoom Meeting scheduled for next Tuesday at 7 pm.
2.) Reject calls to adjourn the meeting without a vote on a neutral party running the El Paso re-org election.
3.) Hear out both sides as they present their case.
4.) Watch the clock yourself to see that there will be equal time for both sides.
5.) Cast your secret ballot in favor of an end to threats, fear, and physical intimidation in party election processes by affirming the motion for a neutral party to run the El Paso re-org election while Vickie Tonkins is chair.
Stand with us as true American Patriots that will bring hope, help, law & order to our party and our communities.
Sincerely,
Republicans for Good Governance