June 21, 2023 10:08 AM UTC

Eating Your Own: State GOP Chairman Expands The Menu

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Ernest Luning reports for the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog: Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams, fresh off his eyebrow-raising attacks on fellow Republican and 2022 primary opponent Rep. Doug Lamborn, on Monday prevailed upon the state party executive committee to publicly “admonish, rebuke, and reprimand” four local Republican elected officials:

The Colorado Republican Party has denounced two GOP state lawmakers and two local officials for signing a letter last month that objected to Montana Republicans’ decision to ban a Democratic lawmaker from that state’s House floor.

The four reprimanded Republicans say they were defending the First Amendment rights of legislators to speak out — all the more important a point, they argue, because majority Democrats routinely silenced Republicans during the legislative session.

The Colorado GOP’s executive committee, however, contend in a resolution approved on Monday that the elected GOP officials were “helping radical Democrats to score political points by spreading lies against Montana House Republicans.”

Here’s what Williams wrote to Republican Party faithful explaining his actions:

This past Monday, the Colorado Republican State Executive Committee overwhelming voted to pass a resolution that admonished, rebuked, and reprimanded Republican State Rep. Ron Weinberg, State Rep. Rick Taggart, Castle Pines Councilman Roger Hudson, and Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon for signing a letter authored by radical Democrats who want to push the mutilation and chemical castration of children.

The Democrat letter these misguided Republicans affixed their names to falsely attacked Montana House Republicans for regaining order in their chamber after a transgender representative from their state incited violence and disrupted their legislative proceedings in an attempt to stop a bill that would rightfully prohibit so-called gender affirming care for children.

First of all, there is absolutely no comparison between Democratic handling of obstruction tactics utilized by the GOP minority this year in Colorado and the banning of Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr from the Montana House chamber entirely for protesting against an anti-trans bill. We haven’t seen a hard estimate for who spoke more, but Republicans in the Colorado legislature were afforded exhaustively ample opportunity to make their points–and they proceeded to abuse that generosity to obstruct the process until Democrats had no choice but to limit debate.

The targets of Williams’ red-on-red wrath, as you can expect, aren’t happy–but also don’t seem intimidated:

“As a Republican, I stand for individual liberty and freedom and the right to say what you want to say,” Weinberg told Colorado Politics…

Noting that he was a member of the state executive committee when he chaired the Larimer County GOP, Weinberg said he doesn’t see how the reprimand advances the cause of Republicans “in any way.”

“It’s a little embarrassing, and I wish they had asked for my side of the story first,” added Weinberg, a South African immigrant. “It feels like the party is abandoning me, and I’ve been a loyal conservative ever since becoming a citizen in 2015.” [Pols emphasis]

This attack from Williams, once again under the official auspices of the Colorado Republican Party, escalates the crisis developing over Williams’ short but highly controversial tenure as party chairman. Combined with Williams evident inability to raise even enough funds to cover payroll expenses, Colorado Republicans are careening toward disaster like never before–and considering the party’s crushing defeats in the last three elections, that’s no small statement. Williams’ broadsides against his fellow Republicans have come to dominate the news coming out of the Colorado GOP in recent weeks, enough that a lay reader might well conclude that “purity purges” are the party’s primary focus in 2023 instead of organizing to be competitive against Democrats in the 2024 elections. What longtime GOP spox Roger Hudson means to say above, but obviously cannot, is that none of what Williams is doing will help Republicans win races.

And whatever Dave Williams imagines his job to be, that’s the only job he was hired for.