A Colorado Republican Party panel voted overwhelmingly on Friday to support embattled state GOP chairman Steve House, who had been embroiled in controversy over efforts by prominent Republicans to persuade him to resign for nearly two weeks.

Following a grueling meeting that lasted more than six hours, the Colorado GOP’s state executive committee passed a motion expressing confidence in House by a vote of 22-1.

After the meeting, a relieved-looking House told reporters he was ready to move on and get to work helping elect Republicans.

“Today was a day about getting through a family dispute,” House said after the vote.

The executive committee also voted to support Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, who was one of three former House supporters who approached him the previous Monday in an effort to talk him into stepping down.

Coffman testified for about 20 minutes before the closed-door executive committee meeting after waiting for hours in the hallway outside the Greenwood Village party headquarters office where the GOP officials met.

The vote came as a blow to Coffman, former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo and Pueblo County GOP chairwoman Becky Mizel, who had met with House in an effort to talk him into quitting. The three were among his strongest supporters when House upset former GOP chairman Ryan Call this spring in a vote of the party’s central committee, but have said they changed their mind about House’s ability to run the.

Mizel is a member of the executive committee and cast the lone vote against supporting House.

House first notified Coffman that he intended to resign the next day but then reversed his decision and came out swinging, releasing a statement that said Coffman, Tancredo and Mizel had threatened to reveal an affair – he denied one existed – unless he resigned.

Earlier last week, a spokesman for House told reporters that the state GOP’s lawyer had approached Denver’s district attorney and the U.S. attorney’s office to discuss whether the attempts to talk House into quitting might amount to a crime, although House on Friday said he never thought he was being extorted or blackmailed. What it amounted to on reflection, he said, was “constructive criticism” about his management style.

After addressing the committee on Friday, Coffman told reporters that it had been a “conversation to try and say we have concerns,” and had been portrayed inaccurately by House. “Nobody accused him of an affair,” she said. “Nobody threatened to expose anything.” She added, “If you look up the legal definition of blackmail this doesn’t fit it.”

“I told them, I said, ‘the chairman is swinging wildly. I will swing strategically,'” Coffman said. “I am not going to stand by and be attacked and accused of criminal behavior. I’m not going to do that anymore.”

A Republican Party spokesman said on Friday that the state party’s attorney had contacted prosecutors about “another matter,” though he declined to specify what that was.

The committee met in a special session to consider the fracas over House’s leadership after the required third of its members petitioned House for the meeting. A regular meeting of the executive committee had already been scheduled for last Friday.

The committee’s vote was largely symbolic, since it is the much-larger state central committee that has the power to remove a party officer. It next meets in the fall.

Tancredo said after the meeting that he still believed House should resign or be removed from office but wasn’t sure what he would do next, if anything, to accomplish that.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com