This post has been updated to include comments from Palacio.

Some Democrats are crying foul after incumbent Colorado Democratic Party chair Rick Palacio announced plans late Thursday to appoint 46 men to the state central committee in order to achieve gender balance the day before it meets on Saturday to select party leadership for the next two years.Palacio, who is seeking a third term, is facing challenges from political consultant David Sabados and former congressional candidate Vic Meyers.

In an email to state central committee members sent at 7 p.m. on Thursday night, Palacio said that he would make the new appointments – amounting to roughly 10 percent of the state party’s governing body – at the direction of a Democratic National Committee attorney.

But Sabados and Meyers and their supporters — along with some Democrats who aren’t aligned with either challenger — contend that the state chair has always made appointments to balance men and women on the central committee after the reorganization meeting, not before, when the new members will have a chance to vote for the chair who appointed them.

“This reeks of cronyism,” wrote state Sen. Irene Aguilar, D-Denver, in a Facebook posting early Friday. (Aguilar hadn’t committed to any of the state chair candidates by Friday morning.)

Former Denver Democratic Party chair Ed Hall, a Sabados supporter, went even further in an interview with The Colorado Statesman on Friday morning.

Calling Palacio’s proposal “impossibly undemocratic,” Hall said, “It looks like someone is stealing an election out from underneath us.” He added, “I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything, but it certainly looks like some shady stuff is going on.”

In a letter to central committee members sent Friday morning, Sabados urged the state party to postpone the appointments or, failing that, let all three candidates name a roughly equal number of men to fill the positions.

“While party rules do permit appointments for balance, never before has the rule been used in a manner that so clearly seems to benefit a single candidate,” he wrote. “Previously this administrative function of the chair had been used after the re-organization meeting — not before,” he added.

Sabados said he had suggested to Palacio that each chair candidate name one-third of the new members but that Palacio rejected the proposal “and is instead handpicking 46 members who will vote in his own election. An election that appears tainted will publicly damage this party for years to come,” Sabados wrote, asking central committee members to “(insist that) Chairman Palacio pursues a solution that will ensure our party election is conducted in a fair manner.”

Meyers told The Statesman that he was concerned that the last-minute controversy could have far-reaching effects on the state party.

“It’s really not going to be good for the party if Rick wins, because of this,” Meyers said. “It’s going to be horrendous for the party because of the lack of transparency and the appearance that the votes were manipulated so he could be retained and the appearance of the complicity of the DNC.”

Meyers said that questions about the appointments are “elevating the importance of other issues” about the state reorganization, including ballot security for state party officer elections, which are set to be handled by the Denver municipal Elections division. (Officials plan to transport ballot boxes from the Denver City Center Marriott, where Democrats will be meeting on Saturday morning, to city facilities to count the votes.)

“Given all this stuff that is popping up now, it makes that process even more concerning,” Meyers said. “We now have the concern about whether or not that process is going to be on the up and up.”

“These appointments were made as fairly and equitably as possible,” Palacio told The Statesman Friday afternoon.

“We have to abide by the rules,” Palacio said. “I didn’t make these rules but it’s my job to make sure I’m abiding by them.”

The question about gender balance — Democratic rules require that various committees and other bodies “shall be as equally divided as practicable according to gender” — arose last week when former Arapahoe County Democratic Party chair John Buckley asked state party officials about appointments stretching back years.

In response, Colorado Democratic Party officials asked DNC attorneys to weigh in.

According to a letter from DNC attorney Patrice Taylor sent on Tuesday, the national party thought that the appointments should take place right away.

“[I]t is my opinion that the requirement for equal division applies to the state central committee for its organizational meeting,” Taylor wrote “To wait until after the meeting to apply the equal division requirement would seem to defeat the spirit and purpose of the equal division requirement.”

Palacio said in his notice to central committee members that he plans to make the majority of appointments from the pool of state central committee alternates, though would have to reach beyond that to make sure that members came from throughout the state to satisfy a requirement for geographical diversity. (It’s only larger counties that have named alternates to the central committee because of the way membership is allocated based on the vote for Democrats in previous elections.) He also said that he planned to name Sabados and Meyers to the committee.

Palacio told The Statesman that between 55-60 percent of the appointments will be made from alternates elected at county party reorganizations earlier this month. The others, from throughout the rest of the state, will be chosen based on recommendations from county party officials, Palacio said.

Meyers said he was frustrated that a protest over committee appointments in years past has blown up on the eve of the state party elections and blamed both of his opponents for causing problems for state Democrats.

“This last minute appointment wouldn’t be happening if Dave’s guys would have thought out their protest last Monday,” he said. “If we had been conducting ourselves as leaders and not jockeying for a position, we would not be talking about this right now.”

While he acknowledged that Buckley raised “valid questions” about historical appointments, Meyers maintained that it was an ill-timed distraction with implications that weren’t anticipated.

“When I’m the chair,” Meyers said, “I’ll be making sure I’m appointing people in a fair manner.”

Sabados countered that Meyers was off base and told The Statesman that Buckley’s complaint had nothing to do with scoring points against Palacio.

“This wasn’t to make Rick look bad,” he said. “This was aired privately in a meeting. If our goal was to raise this publicly, it wouldn’t have happened in a meeting with the party’s attorney, it would have happened in a press release. Our goal was to ensure a fair process.”

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com