August 01, 2024 03:46 PM UTC

Dave Williams' Foes Head Back To Court As "Calvinball" Drama Continues

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• by: Colorado Pols

Keeping tabs on the ongoing feud between dug-in Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave Williams and the growing number of nominal fellow Republicans determined to oust Williams from his position over a lengthy list of moral and fiduciary misdeeds, Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports that the county-level officials who tried and failed to convene a meeting last weekend to consider Williams’ ouster are in court trying to reverse the temporary restraining order Williams obtained to thwart them:

El Paso County Republican Vice Chairman Todd Watkins and Jefferson County Republican Chairwoman Nancy Pallozzi filed a motion late Tuesday in Arapahoe County District Court asking Judge Thomas W. Henderson to reconsider the temporary restraining order he issued Friday that blocked a meeting of the party’s state central committee that Watkins had earlier called for the following day.

In their motion, Watkins and Pallozzi said that the judge granted the order based on “a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts and law,” including what the two allege are inaccurate descriptions of party procedures contained in an earlier filing by Williams and the state GOP.

Underlying the arguments made by Watkins and Pallozzi — who represented themselves in the motion filed this week — is the notion that settled Colorado law allows the state’s Democratic and Republican party committees to govern themselves and resolve their own internal disputes, without the courts having a say.

One problem with this motion we can see off the top is it’s not clear whose authority El Paso County GOP vice chair Todd Watkins and Jefferson County GOP chair Nancy Pallozzi are operating under, since both of them have been chastened by alleged superiors for assisting in the effort to take down Dave Williams. In Pallozzi’s case, the Jeffco GOP executive committee specifically barred her from remaining involved.

As for the law granting parties the power to resolve internal disputes, it could equally be argued that this empowers Williams and his cronies in leadership to freely change the rules to protect Williams, which they very audaciously have done by convening a meeting hundreds of miles from Denver for the sole purpose of punting business until the end of August. But if Williams has the power to make and enforce the rules, that’s what matters–and different from going to court to change them.

And it’s clear now what the point of the party’s stalling has been all along, in case it wasn’t always:

Hope Scheppelman, the Colorado GOP’s vice chair and a Williams ally, told Colorado Politics that the party wants to proceed with a broader lawsuit it filed earlier this month seeking to nullify efforts by Watkins and Pallozzi to call any meeting for the purposes of deciding whether to fire Williams.

“(It’s) within the best interest of everyone for this case to proceed to the merits quickly so we can avoid costly litigation in the long run and limit the harm Watkins and Pallozzi are causing to the Party with less than a 100 days left in the election,” Scheppelman said in a text message. [Pols emphasis]

The longer Williams and friends can hold off a vote to fire Williams by the party’s central committee, two things occur as a result: first, the argument that it’s “too late” to change leadership before the fast-approaching November elections gets stronger, at least on paper. However, given Williams’ spectacular mismanagement of party resources to benefit himself and the state of general disarray within the party as the standoff over his leadership continues, it could certainly be argued that any time to get rid of Williams is a good time, since he doesn’t have the resources, skills, or trust to manage the party’s coordinated campaign effectively.

The second effect of kicking Williams’ fate down the road, of course, is that Williams will continue to get paid.

What comes next? It’s easier to predict what doesn’t: a Republican Party ready to compete in the November elections against Democrats. Having spent the last year and a half at war with itself, the fundamental task the Colorado GOP is supposed to be preparing for is a secondary concern of their leaders.