January 13, 2025
By David Brown
After spending two years as your representative of our county, I was rudely awakened to the sad state of affairs within our state party. We have, at the state level, divided ourselves into two different groups, with each group asserting their vision as the best vision, and it’s gotten bitter. I’ll make an attempt to describe both visions, as best I can. Please remember, this is how I see the two groups, which may or may not be as accurate as I think it is.
Note: this division has existed for decades. It’s just never been apparent before because those people that yearn for the old status quo, were the majority in the COLOGOP.
Also, it behooves me to say that we’re all conservatives but we all do not believe in the America First platform. The last thing I want to do is denigrate those I disagree with in any way but this story needs to be told.
I need to explain the opt-out, before I get into each camp. The opt-out simply means, “opting out of our primaries.” Under state law, for which the Democrats got to write the legislation, there is a provision which allows either party to “opt-out” of participation in our primaries. If a party decides to opt-out, they would choose their candidates through the caucus/assembly process. A candidate would be nominated as their representative at caucus and would then move onto to whichever assembly applies at that level. It could be the state house or state senate or congressional district assembly or if the office for which the candidate is running is a state or federal level position, then the debate and nomination would occur at the state level. The winners of those respective assemblies, would then move straight to the general election and become the Republican nominee on that ballot.
Please permit me to attempt to make that clearer with a sort of real-world example – the HD11 contest at the HD11 assembly last year when we held the Boulder County Assembly. There we nominated three candidates to advance to the Republican primary. In an opt-out scenario, there would be no primary so those candidates would have been nominated on the floor at the assembly, just like we did. We would then have moved to the final round to pick one person to be the Republican House District 11 candidate, who would have been HD11’s candidate for the general election. That candidate would have had an extra three months to campaign for the general election. No primary, no fuss, no muss.D
Now, onto the two camps…
The first group, which I’ll refer to as “opposition group,” because they’re against opting out of our primaries. Their reasons are multi-fold but primarily have to with keeping the primaries open while maintaining the ability of a candidate to petition onto the ballot.
Those in opposition to opting out of our primaries and/or eliminating the ability for a candidate to petition onto the ballot, have chosen that as their hill to die on, so to speak. If you’re wondering why they’re so adamant about that stance, well, just know it’s a mystery to me too. When you ask them, they usually dodge the question as if it’s good enough to just know they think it’s vital for those provisions to remain. However, I recently heard a reason that sounds reasonable: “You don’t always get good candidates through the assembly process.” In response to that, I would point out that you don’t always get good candidates from petitioning on either. In fact, you hardly ever get good candidates from petitioning on since someone has to pay to gather those signatures so you’re beholden to someone. In Jeff Crank’s case, he’s beholden to the Center for American Prosperity and you can bet they’ll be collecting on what they think they’re owed. While Hurd, Crank and Evans all petitioned on, Evans also went through the assembly and got top billing with 62% of the vote so one could argue that Evans was chosen by the grassroots and he won his race.
From where I sit, a majority of the opposition wants open primaries. Not only do they want the ability to petition onto the ballot, they also believe that unaffiliated voters should have a say in who our nominees are, a stance which we are adamantly against. The person whom I referred to earlier favors petitioning in a closed primary is the exception.
The second group I’ll refer to as the “opt-out group,” because they favor opting out of our primaries. They believe our elections are as crooked as a mafia boss, both the primary and of course the general. They believe there are a number of ways to rig our elections and our primaries. Those who favor opting out have seen that candidates who petition onto the primary ballot are not nearly as conservative as they would prefer, which is why they petition on – because they would never gain the approval of the grass-roots, America First Republicans that tend to participate in the assemblies. And that my friends, brings us to how grass-roots conservatives lose in primaries.
Democrats at the national level are able to spend millions of dollars leading up to a primary, attacking the conservative candidate as “too extreme for Colorado.” It is an effective strategy for those unaffiliated voters who vote in our primaries who know nothing about the issues but only respond to the messaging. Then there is the issue with our election system, a system where we send out millions of ballots and have no idea what happens to them or who or what is voting them. It’s a system where we have to trust and pray, “Dear God, please let the votes of every one of those ballots come from an eligible elector.”
The “opt-out” group believes the whole system, in its entirety can’t be trusted. But they also believe there are some things we can do to mitigate the unfairness.
The best solution, they believe is to opt-out of participating in our primaries and let Republicans who know their candidates best, select those candidates. It’s a two-front battle. On one front we need our State Central Committee (SCC) to favor opting out by a near impossible threshold. If we can’t do that, we should at least attempt to gain control of the nominating process. We may still have to face candidates in a primary until we can opt-out or get the law changed. The state party may try to introduce incentives to encourage candidates to go through the primary process, such as use of the party’s non-profit postage rate, endorsements and other resources.
In the above example with HD11, let’s say candidate A is the candidate we selected. HD11 attendees know all the candidates and they decided that candidate A is who they want to represent them. The opt-out group believes many of those who participate in the nominating process are familiar with the issues and are the best and obvious choice to determine who represents them at the state house. Moreover, those who are at the assembly were chosen at caucus, where all Republicans are encouraged to attend to elect representatives to the assembly. It is not the “exclusive club” the media and the “opposition group” would have you believe. These people are Republicans, chosen by Republicans to determine who our nominees are going to be. Moreover, they’re the most knowledgeable and committed Republicans – the very people who should be choosing our Republicans nominees.
That brings me to what has happened at the state party level over the past couple of years.
It’s been a circus. The opposition group has not exactly been on their best behavior and the debate has not exactly been cordial. This group has not offered the same consideration to the chairman of COGOP as other past chairmen. There have been two votes to opt-out of our primaries and both votes have roughly been around 65% to 35%, with the opt-out “winning.” I put “winning” in quotes because – remember that Democrat legislature I spoke of earlier that got to write the laws resulting from the passing of Props 107 & 108? – the Colorado legislature decided the threshold for passing should be 75% of a state central committee to opt-out of our primaries, a nearly impossible burden. And it’s not 75% of those who are voting, it’s 75% of the entire SCC. So, if there are 420 voting members of the SCC, then 315 must vote in the affirmative, even if only 350 show up.
When it came to vote to opt out, something in the demeanor of the opposition changed. Since Chairman Dave Williams crafted and implemented that agenda, they have gone after him with a fury you would have to see to believe, and they pulled no punches. They sued the entire leadership and called an illegal meeting of the state central committee, relying on secret lists they refused to make public. They claimed they had the required 25% of the members of the CRC to call a meeting, but only produced names and no phone numbers or emails that would be used to confirm the list.
The list of names came from the chairwoman of Jefferson County, who would later be rebuked for her unauthorized pursuit of ousting Dave Williams as chairman. In addition to censure, the Jefferson County executive committee asked for all materials released to the media and the list of names that was compiled. But somehow that list ended up in different hands, who then formed a group of people that called for an illegal meeting of the SCC, an opinion upheld by an Arapahoe County judge. They held that meeting anyway and wouldn’t get a quorum if not for over 60 questionable proxies. They then “voted” the entire leadership of the SCC out. But SCC leadership had already called a meeting of the SCC for the very next week. They contacted their group and advised them not to attend a duly called SCC meeting in order to prevent a quorum. They failed. The meeting was held, a quorum was reached and the SCC overwhelmingly confirmed Dave Williams, Hope Scheppelman, and Anna Ferguson as our officers. The lawsuit ended up costing COLOGOP $100,000 to defend, money that could have gone to the opt-out lawsuit.
That’s the unfortunate story of the opt-out of the last two years. There remains a need to do whatever we can do to gain control of who we nominate as our candidates. 65% is a long way from 75% needed to opt-out of our crooked primaries, but that’s what we need and every county, including Boulder County needs to field SCC representation that is 100% firmly in the corner of the opt-out and achieving that representation is our goal.
I am beyond delighted that the Colorado GOP has actively taken steps to fight back against our crooked election system and process. It’s the first time I think I’ve ever seen this kind of “fight” coming from the state level and it’s encouraging to see. We must continue this fight by putting in place at the state party level, more like minded people who understand the very survival of the Colorado GOP is at stake. Crooked elections notwithstanding, if we don’t start offering Coloradans real choices in our elections, we are finished as a party.
There is a virtual meeting of the SCC on January 30th to amend the bylaws that do several things in this fight, one of which is to regularly schedule an opt-out vote in future SCC meetings. Another is an amendment that holds a plaintiff in a frivolous lawsuit responsible for costing the COLOGOP tens of thousands of dollars. I sincerely hope they all pass.