The battle for control of the El Paso County Republican Party returned to court Friday, as the state GOP and its chair filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed earlier this week by the local party and its chair over who gets to run next week’s leadership elections.

The dispute stems from longstanding allegations by party stalwarts and numerous current and former local elected officials that El Paso County GOP chair Vickie Tonkins is biased against some Republicans and can’t be counted on to run the county party’s upcoming Feb. 11 reorganization meeting fairly.

Tonkins, who is seeking a third term heading the county organization and roundly denies the allegations, counters that her detractors are instead struggling to regain the dominance they lost in recent party elections when a new wave of Republicans – many inspired by former President Donald Trump – swept them from power.

Despite a vote by the state GOP’s central committee on Tuesday to install a neutral team to administer the county’s leadership elections, Tonkins and her allies say they have the law on their side and are pressing ahead with their original plans to conduct the meeting under her supervision.

At the same time, the party regulars designated by the state GOP have begun organizing a separate meeting scheduled to take place at the same time, only at a location across town – creating the spectacle of simultaneous, competing party officer elections, with both sides claiming theirs will yield the only legally recognized El Paso County Republican Party. 

That’s where the burgeoning courtroom conflict comes in.

A lawsuit filed Monday by Tonkins, the county party and six of its precinct-level leaders argues that the state party is overreaching and doesn’t have the authority to “meddle” in the local party’s internal business by imposing outsiders to oversee its leadership elections.

In a 13-page filing in Arapahoe County District Court, Colorado GOP chair Kristi Burton Brown and the state party argue that under settled Colorado law, the state Republican and Democratic parties’ central committees – not the courts – are the “final arbiters” and “sole tribunal” of controversies within the parties.

The motion cites recent court decisions that rebuffed arguments similar to the one Tonkins and the county party are making. It also declares that the state party’s authority to resolve its own internal disputes is protected under the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of association.

Accordingly, Burton Brown and the state GOP maintain that the court lacks jurisdiction to rule on the complaint filed by Tonkins and the others and asks the court to “summarily dismiss” it. 

Burton Brown declined to comment on the filing, which was authored by the state GOP’s longtime legal counsel, Chris Murray, an election law attorney with Denver-based Brownstein Hyatt Barber Schreck, one of the most politically connected and powerful law firms in the country.

Brad Bergford, a lawyer at Denver-based Illumine Legal and one of the attorneys representing Tonkins and the El Paso County party, told Colorado Politics on Thursday that his clients intend to ask the court to issue a temporary restraining restraining order and injunction against the state party to prevent it from taking over the county party leadership election. By 6 p.m. Friday, however, that motion had yet to be filed with the court.

He shrugged off Burton Brown’s and the state party’s filing.

“We briefly looked at the motion to dismiss and remain confident that our position will be confirmed by the courts based upon the firm legal footing which we believe state law and the parties’ bylaws provide,” Bergford said in an email.