August 27, 2024 11:09 AM UTC

Colorado GOP's Schoening Trucks On As If Nothing Has Happened

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #2: Colorado Democrats would be falling down on the job if they did not take maximum advantage of the Colorado Republican Party’s leadership crisis:

Another meeting of the Colorado GOP is scheduled for August 31, 2024, to continue the drama, where it’s possible Party leaders may be removed (again) – or maybe not – from their roles, likely sending the issue to court or the Republican National Committee before it’s ultimately resolved. While the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) recognized the new leadership, Williams said that the NRCC has “no authority to do anything.”

Echoing the chaotic fifteen rounds of votes it took for failed Speaker Kevin McCarthy to be named Speaker of the House, which resulted in his removal from the job months later, the Colorado GOP is continuing in the Washington DC tradition of disarray under the leadership of Donald Trump.

“The GOP has a troubling recent history regarding their commitment to democracy, so we’re not too surprised that no one seems to know who’s really in charge over there. At the end of the day, it simply doesn’t matter who the Colorado GOP Chair is: Bremer and Williams are two sides of the same coin and both are 100% focused on dividing Coloradans with their unhealthy and strange anti-LGBTQ obsessions – not bringing people together,” said CDP Chair Shad Murib. “Colorado Democrats are going to remain focused on talking with voters about the issues that matter most to Coloradans, like saving them money, creating jobs, protecting our democracy and freedoms, and getting the government and politicians out of our personal choices.”

Bremer spent the first moments after his “election” tweeting anti-trans screeds late into the evening following Williams’ own calls earlier this summer to “burn all Pride flags.”

Both Bremer and Williams have pledged their support to Donald Trump and his anti-Colorado Project 2025 agenda of giving the wealthy even more Trump handouts, shuttering the Department of Education, utilizing the Department of Justice to go after political enemies, enacting a nationwide abortion ban, and diminishing our public lands. Neither Bremer nor Williams has repudiated Trump for calling our military service members “suckers” and “losers.”

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UPDATE: Don’t tell MAGA blunderkind Weston Imer there’s been a change of leadership in the Colorado GOP, he’s not listening either:

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Colorado Republican Party “Director of Special Initiatives” Darcy Schoening took a brief break from her usual unsolicited blast emails in hate-filled “support” of Republican legislative candidates to promote an event coming up tomorrow, the next regularly-scheduled “Capitol Club Luncheon” headlined by…Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave “Buh Bye Brandon” Williams, who according to the flyer below sent out this morning is still the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party:

As readers know, Williams has vowed to ignore the vote by dissident members of the Colorado GOP Central Committee on Saturday ousting Williams along with Williams’ loyal lieutenants Hope Scheppelman and Anna Ferguson. A meeting set by Scheppelman for this coming Saturday, a meeting Williams is telling his supporters not to boycott unlike last Saturday’s, is the only gathering Williams intends to recognize.

Unfortunately for everyone else headlining tomorrow’s luncheon, the question is not so simple. With maybe-chairman Eli Bremer shoring up support in Denver and in D.C. after being voted in Saturday, continuing to legitimize Williams’ operation by appearing with him at this event is a potentially fateful decision for these candidates. It doesn’t matter electorally since he has absolutely no chance of winning, but we’re particularly surprised to see CO-01 GOP candidate Valdamar Archuleta appear along Williams after Archuleta very publicly opposed the anti-Pride Month messages from the party that helped tip the scales against Williams. Most of the legislative candidates appearing at this event have been the beneficiaries of the party’s controversial email blasts, but unlike Cleave Simpson none of them ever pushed back.

Although Darcy Schoening was not one of the party officers voted out by name last Saturday, her close association with Williams and role in the party’s controversial wedge-issue message strategy makes it unlikely that she would remain on board if Bremer prevails in the parliamentary squabble to determine which meeting and which vote is the one that counts. Continuing to promote Williams as the party chairman makes it even less likely that Schoening will stick around, even if her politics aren’t that much different from Bremer’s–who himself ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022 largely on a platform of transphobic scare tactics.

In the end, there can be only one Colorado Republican Party chairman. But the present state of disarray makes it impossible for Republican candidates to plan for next week, let alone the next two critical months.