The raging dumpster fire otherwise known as the “leadership” of Colorado Republicans is facing a real challenge to its destructive mismanagement of a once-great political party.

Jefferson County Republican Chair Nancy Pallozzi is leading an insurrection within the 400-member Colorado Republican State Central Committee to remove Dave Williams as state chairman. She is seeking the signatures of 25% of the committee to force a vote to remove Williams which requires 60% at a special meeting.   

Williams was narrowly elected last year after several ballots when he allegedly convinced criminally indicted Tina Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, to withdraw from the race and endorse him with the promise he would hire her at the state party. Not surprisingly, Williams walked away from Peters after he was elected.

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Since then, Williams has embarked on a series of abuses of power. He tried to steal the votes of absent members at a state central committee meeting and cast those votes as he wanted. When he was elected he said he would not run against 5th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who defeated him in the Republican primary in 2022. When Lamborn decided not to run again, Williams got into the race but refused to resign as state chairman. Since then, he has abused party financial resources for his campaign.

Williams violated a longstanding policy of state central committee neutrality in party primaries and has endorsed candidates in several congressional and state legislative races. He continues to wage war on unaffiliated voters, who now represent 48% of the Colorado electorate, by going to court to try to steal their right to vote in party primaries. He led the failed effort to cancel the 2024 Republican primary, which would have denied 900,000 registered Republicans the right to vote in a primary.

He has launched a despicable campaign of character assassination against his predecessor, former state Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown, making unsubstantiated allegations of financial mismanagement during her term. This is pretty rich given his abuse of state party funds for his campaign for Congress.

The Colorado Republican State Central Committee, which elects the state chairman, was created more than 100 years ago by state statute as was its Democratic counterpart. Throughout its history, the chairman and the state central committee have weathered internal party debates and nomination fights.

Until Williams, Republican state chairs of integrity and stature have mostly led the party over that time, making sure it was ready to support Republican candidates after competitive party primaries.

The Colorado Republican Party reflected the great national Republican debates over its history, such as the post-World War II nomination fight between General Dwight Eisenhower and U.S. Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio in 1952; the emergence of conservative U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona in 1964; the fight between former Vice President Richard Nixon and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York in 1968; the titanic struggle between President Gerald Ford and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1976; and the fight for the nomination in 2016 among Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and others.

All of these fights were intense and could have divided Colorado Republicans into irrelevancy. But the state chairs from those eras maintained their neutrality so they could put the party back together for the general election.

Colorado Republicans have seen intensely fought primaries for governor and senator over the decades. Cable television magnate Bill Daniels challenged Republican Gov. John Vanderhoof in 1974. U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong had a primary with a national hero, Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert, in 1978. U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard defeated Attorney General Gail Norton for the Senate nomination in 1996. Gov. Bill Owens won a primary over Senate President Tom Norton in 1998. 

Only two state chairs have abused their power and rendered the state party as irrelevant. Steve Curtis announced he would not vote for state Treasurer Bill Owens for governor in 1998 because Owens was allegedly not conservative enough. Perhaps partially because the discredited Curtis opposed him, Owens went on to become the first Republican governor to be elected in 28 years and he remains the only Republican governor in the past 50 years.

But Curtis looks like a rank amateur compared to Williams, who is ripping what is left of the Colorado Republican Party into shreds with his unethical abuse of power. A complaint has been filed with the Federal Election Commission regarding his use of state party funds to support his campaign for Congress.

Most recently, Williams released a hate-filled attack on Pride Month that repelled Republicans from across the state. This was the final straw for Republican leaders such as Pallozzi, who initiated the petition drive to remove Williams.

This attempt to remove Williams is unprecedented. There has been no previous attempt to remove a state chairman over the past 100 years. 

Even though the general election is less than five months away, this debate needs to happen within the state central committee. The state party is an embarrassing dumpster fire as Republican affiliation numbers continue to stagnate while unaffiliated voters are now almost half of the electorate.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who worked for U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong for nine years before managing campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.