The 2025 race for Colorado GOP Chair is heating up. Last week, Brita Horn, a former Routt County treasurer, announced intentions to challenge incumbent Dave Williams for the role, and today the Colorado GOP’s director of special initiatives, Darcy Schoening, announced her candidacy.
With the threat by the Colorado GOP to sue a Durango school district over a resolution that would allow teachers to display a version of the LGBTQ+ pride and Black Lives Matter flag as protected government speech, they are continuing their campaign of using transgender identities as a political tactic.
While conservatives are celebrating the victory and impending inauguration of Donald Trump, they are also preparing for 2025’s school board elections. Recent media appearances from some of Colorado’s most vocal conservative education activists indicate that the playbook for 2025 will focus on three tried and true issues — diversity programs, transgender people, and unions.
Montezuma County Republican Party Chair Lenetta Shull chastised Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams over the “transphobic email” the state party sent out last week during a Sunday evening “grassroots town hall meeting” held via Zoom. According to a recording of the event obtained by the Colorado Times Recorder, Shull raised concerns about the impact the email is having on the Senate District 6 race.
In another targeted attack against transgender people, the Colorado GOP, represented by Director of Special Initiatives Darcy Schoening, sent an email calling on the state’s school boards to resist enacting recent updates to Title IX that protect transgender students from discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
Williams' fearmongering follows the legacy of the Colorado Ku Klux Klan before him.
Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released its annual report of hate and antigovernment groups across the U.S. Among the 30 groups in Colorado identified by the report were four chapters of Moms for Liberty.
Rep. Stephanie Vigil (D-Colorado Springs) responded yesterday to Colorado GOP Director of Special Initiatives Darcy Schoening’s recent party-wide email urging parents to remove their kids from public schools and claiming Democrats want to “turn more kids trans.” Schoening’s email specifically identified legislation sponsored by Vigil, this year’s House Bill 1039, Non-legal Name Changes in Schools.
The 2024 Colorado Republican State Assembly in Pueblo this weekend showcased the priorities of the party heading into the November election — banning gender-affirming care for trans people, continuing to deny the validity of the 2020 election, downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection, antagonism toward migrants and immigration, and full-throated support for former President Donald Trump. The keynote speakers for the event included Christina Bobb, the former Trump lawyer and subject of a Department of Justice investigation into obstruction of justice connected to Trump’s handling of classified documents, and U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct with an underage girl.
The initiatives were denied on the basis that they violated the single subject rule.
