Once again, members of the Colorado Republican Party’s central committee have scheduled separate, competing meetings to consider whether the state GOP’s governing body supports its chair, but this time neither meeting will be held under a bridge.

State GOP Chair Brita Horn on Feb. 14 issued a formal call for an online meeting March 2 in response to a petition circulated by her critics, who want to hold votes on resolutions to curb her spending authority, drop a longstanding lawsuit involving rival party factions, and express whether the party has confidence in Horn’s leadership.

Horn’s move came days after Russ Andrews, the state GOP secretary, notified Republicans that the central committee will convene online on Saturday, Feb. 21, with the same agenda, in response to the same petition, though Horn insists the meeting will have no effect because Andrews wasn’t authorized to call it.

“Our Bylaws do not grant the Secretary any authority to independently issue a meeting call,” the official call for the March 2 meeting said.

“She might well be right, and I don’t care,” Andrews said in an interview, adding that he’s encouraging Republicans to attend both meetings.

“I’m doing this to unify the party,” he said. “I’m convinced that people on both sides relish the vitriol and the hatred. It’s got to end. My sole goal is for Republicans to win elections, and the first step is to unify the party.”

At the same time, Horn’s critics have begun gathering signatures on a new petition to force a vote to remove her from office. On Friday, Andrews told Colorado Politics that petition organizers have secured about three-quarters of the required number of signatures, including his own.

Andrews also said Horn cut off access to his state party email account earlier this week, making it impossible to communicate with county parties and send legally required filings to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, weeks before the state caucus and assembly process begins in early March.

His email access was restored after Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation intervened, Andrews said, but with conditions imposed that limit who he can email.

“She said that if I use it for any other purpose, she would shut it down again,” Andrews said in a text message.

A party spokesman didn’t respond to questions about Andrews’ description of his email access but issued a statement to Colorado Politics.

“It is unfortunate we had some issues with our email addresses and they have since been resolved and access has been restored,” said Alec Hanna, the state GOP’s executive director, in a text message.

The sequence of events mirrors an attempt to fire Horn’s predecessor as party chair nearly two years ago, when a faction of state Republicans that included Horn organized a central committee meeting to recall then-Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams, a former state lawmaker from Colorado Springs.

In a dispute that consumed the party for months, Williams’ detractors took issue with the GOP’s decision to make endorsements in primaries and a series of attacks by Williams and other party officials on the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month, a move some Republicans said threatened the party’s ability to broaden its appeal.

Williams rejected the meeting held by his critics as “illegal” and countered by scheduling another central committee meeting in a public park in a small town in the southwest corner of the state, where the handful of Republicans in attendance took shelter under a bridge to conduct business when it started to rain.

A court eventually ruled that the meeting organized by Williams’ foes hadn’t complied with party bylaws and nullified its results, which included electing Horn as party vice chair.

About six months later, Horn, a former Routt County treasurer, won the state GOP’s top officer position at the party’s biennial reorganization meeting. Williams didn’t seek a second term.

Horn was elected on a slate that included Andrews in the secretary slot and Darrel Phelan, a former Las Animas County GOP official, as vice chair. Within months, however, Phelan resigned, citing what he described as difficulty working with Horn as a reason.

Former state House Whip Richard Holtorf won an election to replace Phelan, but he announced earlier this month that he plans to resign at the end of February, also pointing to what he termed his frustration with Horn.