The Colorado Republican Party’s State Central Committee (SCC) met last Saturday, Sept. 28, in Aurora, that much is certain. As is the fact that Anschutz Medical Campus police had to take the stage to shut down the meeting after it ran an hour long and appeared to have no end in sight. As to what happened during the meeting, from the legitimacy of tabulated votes to whether or not the meeting ever actually ended, well, that depends on whom you ask.
The meeting’s purpose was the party’s biannual vote to decide whether to participate in Colorado’s semi-open primary process. State law passed via citizen initiative in 2016 dictates that opting out requires a vote of at least 75% of the total number of the party’s central committee members, not just those in attendance. Opt-out supporters tried an end-run around this law by claiming that the vote taken by the entire state assembly last year met the three-quarters threshold and that all that was left for the Central Committee to do last weekend was ratify that year-old vote with a simple majority vote of those present. Amidst a flurry of motions to amend and points of order, and endless shouted interruptions, supporters of that plan pushed the opt-out agenda item to the top and a vote was taken, passing 226-196.
Those in favor of opting out believe they succeeded. SCC Bonus member Jeremy Goodall declared victory in a video:
“My Fellow Members of the Colorado Republican Committee, It is a GLORIOUS new day of Revival! The OPT-OUT won, says Goodall. “It is inarguably the will of This Republican Party. Brita’s performance and conduct in yesterday’s meeting was in equal parts entitled, unprepared, unprofessional, and horrifying. The role and duties of a chair are to facilitate to the best of their ability, the majority will of the members. She, instead, fully demonstrated that she is out of step, if not outright hostile, to the new direction demanded by the clear majority of this committee, and the near unanimous majority of the thousands of State Convention delegates.
It is my belief that we are at the present moment, as Colorado Republicans, soldiers in a de-facto state of ideological and spiritual war. It seems obvious that we are also in a state, here in Colorado, of Democrat occupation. Awhile back, Senator Lynda Zamora Wilson pointed out to me that when captured, U.S. soldiers are governed by the Military Code of Conduct, such code requires members to: resist by all means available and make every effort to escape. Yesterday, we, as the Central Committee of the Colorado Republican Party, voted… to escape Democrat control by every effort and all means available.”
For her part, Chairwoman Brita Horn announced in a party-wide email that she shared vote results with Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, whose office agreed with Horn’s assessment that the opt-out vote failed.
“While this meeting had moments of confusion, I wanted to reassure the over 900,000 Republicans across the State of Colorado that there will be a Republican primary election in 2026. … Several SCC members then contacted the Secretary of State’s office to inform her that our party had decided against holding a primary. We intervened and presented the vote totals from Saturday’s meeting to the Secretary of State, i.e., we presented an outcome of Saturday’s meeting that was not rigged, but true. The Secretary of State’s office responded that we must follow the law, and did not meet the threshold for opting out.”
This would seem to settle the matter for now, but multiple SCC members who support opting out warned leadership that failing to opt out will result in legal action. During the meeting, Jefferson County bonus member Weston Imer took to the microphone to make his case.
“Nearly a unanimous number of delegates voted in favor [of opting out],” said Imer. “Chairman DaveWilliams announced that the 2024 state assembly and convention does hereby order the central committee to opt us out of all open primaries in perpetuity. The teller committee then confirmed the vote. Folks, it’s clear we are directed to opt out. If we do not, we will get sued in a class action.”
Other opt-out supporters decided to sue even before the meeting occurred. Weld Republican Cody Le Blanc filed a lawsuit the day before the meeting. He explained his actions to podcasters Chuck Bonniwell and Julie Hayden, who are both also SCC bonus members who support opting out.
“As a delegate of the 2024 assembly, I am suing the Colorado Republican party to hold them accountable for the vote that we passed as delegates in 2024, said Leblanc. “When we directed the state central committee to opt this out of the primary…Colorado statute is very clear. That the assembly is the larger body- it can set the rules for the way that the organization operates, and so that resolution that was passed at assembly directed the state party — the central committee — to opt us out. There is no question about it.”
LeBlanc is not without influential supporters. Boulder GOP Chair Peg Cage is soliciting funds to support his lawsuit against the party on her website.
El Paso County bonus member and former Special Initiatives Director Darcy Schoening voted for the opt-out via proxy and says the SCC’s vote succeeded in opting the party out of next year’s primary. Asked how she thinks the party should now proceed, she was unequivocal in her approach:
“Consider us opted out. Get the conservative electeds like Zamora, DeGraaf, Bottoms, Bradley, etc to participate in our process, not the SOS, literally tear this apart from the inside,” said Schoening. “Stand on principle, no matter what. There’s no other way, now that the vote is in our favor. Do not participate in a primary that is no longer valid. We opted out, no matter what the corrupt Chair and her associates assert; their attempts to subvert the will of the Colorado GOP’s voting body is disrespectful to the honest and hard working Coloradans who lean R. We shall not back down, even if it means the party must splinter into two factions- those who stand on principle and those who lie to protect their power.”
Denver GOP bonus member Valdamar Archuleta, who is also the former president of the Log Cabin Republicans, opposes the opt-out but acknowledged that the meeting was chaotic and poorly run — so much so that it may not have officially ended. He shared his experience with 630 KHOW radio host Ryan Schuiling earlier this week.
“We had … a different parliamentarian than usual,” said Archuleta. “Normally, it’s Gregory Carlson who is amazing but he’s running for county commissioner in Fremont County so he couldn’t do it. So they got someone else, and this guy just did not really seem like he fully knew what was going on or he was overwhelmed by the whole process. Because the parliamentarian is supposed to be there to make sure things run smoothly, answer the questions like, ‘what do we do next? How do we handle this?’ And he was overwhelmed. And so that did not help the whole meeting … And I’ve heard today that how the meeting should end is you make a motion to adjourn, you have that whole process, and then the meeting adjourned. That didn’t happen. So someone said today, technically, we’re still in committee. Yeah. So maybe we can have a Zoom call and finish this meeting.”
The vote divided not only rank & file bonus members, but elected officials as well. While the congressional caucus was united against opting out, many state legislators supported it, those voting “yes” include Reps. Bottoms, DeGraaf, Keltie, Brooks, Weinberg, and Luck. State Sens. Mark Baisley and Lynda Zamora-Wilson also voted “yes.”
A complete tally of SCC members’ votes is available on Cage’s website and also on former party Secretary Anna Ferguson, who posted images of the counted votes on her public Facebook page.
