Colorado Republican Party officials who want to fire state GOP chairman Dave Williams submitted a petition Wednesday demanding that Williams call a meeting of the party’s state central committee to consider whether to remove him from office.

Williams, a former Colorado Springs legislator, lost a primary Tuesday to former talk show host and conservative operative Jeff Crank for the 5th Congressional District seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn.

Fellow Republicans began gathering support to oust Williams earlier this month after he signed a mass email sent by the state party attacking the LGBTQ community’s Pride Month, referring to its participants as “godless groomers.”

Criticism mounted after the state GOP posted a call on social media to “Burn all the #pride flags this June,” and by last week more than a dozen county Republican parties had passed resolutions calling on Williams to resign or face removal.

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“He has 10 days to call that meeting,” Todd Watkins, the El Paso County GOP’s vice chair, told Colorado Politics. “If he does not call that meeting in 10 days, we will call it.”

Watkins said organizers turned in 113 signatures from members of the state party’s roughly 440-member governing body, meeting the requirement under party bylaws to force party officials to convene a special meeting within 30 days. Under the bylaws, it would take an affirmative vote from 60% of those in attendance to remove a party officer.

The petition’s organizers believe they have more than enough support to vote Williams from office, Watkins said.

“We request that the special meeting be held in person, with closed paper ballot voting, on a Saturday, and at an acceptable time and place, so all (central committee) members will be able to attend,” the petition read.

Williams didn’t respond to a request for comment after Watkins delivered the petition. Previously, he told Colorado Politics that he has no plans to step down and intends to keep his job.

Watkins took over as the public face of the effort to boot Williams after the Jefferson County GOP’s executive committee censured the county party chair, Nancy Pallozzi, for launching the petition drive without clearing it with them first.

Watkins said Williams’ divisive remarks about Pride Month might have sparked the petition, but he added that Republican signers have signed on for multiple reasons.

“It’s a laundry list,” Watkins said.

Among the reasons Republicans cite, he said, are Williams’ refusal to step aside as party chairman when he declared his congressional candidacy and the party’s decision to take sides in contested primaries this year, throwing its tradition of neutrality out the window.

“They didn’t just endorse people,” Watkins said, noting that Williams and his cohorts, including state vice chair Hope Sheppelmann and party secretary Anna Ferguson, openly attacked Republican candidates in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary.

While the state GOP passed a bylaws change last fall allowing the party to back candidates who met certain criteria in primaries, Watkins said the amendment was “so poorly written, it actually says the opposite of what they think it says. There are yoga instructors that wish they were as flexible as that sentence.”

Watkins said the state party’s track record endorsing in the primary underlined why he wants Williams to go.

“You don’t enter into removal of elected officers lightly, unless you have good cause,” Watkins said. “I think we have good cause. I think yesterday showed exactly what that cause was. I don’t know of anyone who thinks it was OK to use the party name and the party machinery and lose that horribly.”

Only four of the 18 candidates the state party endorsed in contested primaries won the Republican nomination on Tuesday, Watkins noted, adding, “You’re not going to get brought up to the majors on a record like that.”

Scheppelman told Colorado Politics on Wednesday that there’s a possibility the petitioners can air their grievances at a recently announced central committee meeting set to take place later this summer, but only if the petition passes muster.

“Yes, there’s a special meeting called for Aug. 31, and the signatures will first need to be verified and adjudicated with the State Executive Committee before their request will be added to the special meeting agenda,” Scheppelman said in a text message.

Watkins said the party officer’s proposal is counter to state GOP bylaws.

“We’re following the black-and-white letter of our bylaws,” he said. “If the petition is submitted, then you call the meeting. You need 25%. We got that. Let’s go.”

If the meeting is called, it won’t be the first special meeting of the central committee convened since Williams took over as party chair in early 2023.

Last December, Monument Republican Darcy Schoening, the state party’s director of special initiatives, submitted a petition to hold a meeting to decide whether the Colorado party would formally endorse former President Donald Trump ahead of the state’s March presidential primary.

Within days of Schoening announcing she was gathering signatures, the state party had scheduled a meeting for mid-January, where central committee members approved a resolution to support Trump.