Commentary - Judge saves the Colorado GOP from itself. For now.
The story of the Colorado Republican Party in recent years is one of unwavering breakdown and irrelevance. Each time it appears the party could sink no farther, it defies expectations and finds a new bottom.
It seemed eager to do so again this week until a federal judge stepped in. The court saved the party from itself, but don’t underestimate it. It is sure to exhibit ever more creativity in self-destruction.
Left-leaning Coloradans might be tempted to celebrate a foe’s unmatched rake-stepping skill. But the public business of the whole state suffers when one of the two major parties is so incompetent and so unrepresentative and so extreme for so long.
The court case involved an attempt by state Republicans to remove the party from state primary elections, which party leaders despise, since the primaries are “open.” A state law adopted by voters in 2016 says that party primaries must be open to unaffiliated voters, who can choose to participate in the primary elections of one major party or the other. But a party can opt out of primaries on a three-fourths vote of its central committee and restrict the candidate nominations to the insider process of caucuses and assemblies. That’s what many Colorado GOP leaders have long tried to do.
More voters in Colorado are unaffiliated than are registered with the major parties combined. But Republican leaders would prefer to exclude all those independents in favor of the most active — and often most extreme — among their members, giving the majority of Coloradans no say in choosing which candidates can stand to represent them. They have launched legal challenges in pursuit of that goal, and they scored a win in March, when a federal judge in Denver, George W. Bush-nominated Philip Brimmer, said the three-fourths threshold to opt out of primaries is unconstitutionally high.
With that success, the overeager party then asked the judge to let it get out of the primary election scheduled to occur in two months, a move that would have spelled chaos for elections officials. Brimmer wisely shut down the effort.
But the judge has no power to curb the party’s other alienating behavior.
That behavior took a dark turn in 2023, when the party elected a flame-throwing election denier, Dave Williams, as its leader. His one-term tenure produced little but acrimony, mismanagement and electoral failure. He angered a substantial portion of his own party when he announced a congressional run but refused to relinquish the party-chair seat, creating a clear conflict of interest. In a sharp break with precedent, the party endorsed his candidacy and that of his allies in primary races against other Republicans. The vast majority of his preferred candidates lost, and the party’s reputation was tarnished by its vile anti-LGBTQ+ messaging.
The tenure of Williams’ successor, Brita Horn, was at least as tumultuous. Two of her vice chairs resigned, the party accrued big debts, the central committee rebuked her with a vote of no confidence, and this month she resigned about a year into her term. A big source of debt was from a lawsuit the party under Williams brought against Horn and other Republicans who had tried to oust him.
In her resignation letter, Horn said she had tried to foster a “more united party.” “However, under the continued threat of further division, legal attacks and escalation within our party, it has become clear that those intent on prolonging this conflict will not stop,” she said.
The result of that dysfunction is all too apparent. A Republican candidate hasn’t won a statewide office since 2016. Democrats have controlled both chambers of the Legislature since 2019, making it a durable trifecta state. Coloradans too often have no legitimate alternative to the Democratic Party, leaving many voters feeling unrepresented and relieving Democratic candidates of the accountability that comes with viable party competition.
And it appears the GOP will only double-down. While the Republican primary elections according to Brimmer’s ruling this week will proceed as planned on June 30, the party now has an easier path to opt out in 2028.
More immediately, it must pick a new chair, and the most prominent candidate so far is podcaster Joe Oltmann. You might have heard of Oltmann as the originator of national “big lie” narratives after the 2020 election, or for his periodic calls for political executions, or for his unalloyed antisemitism, or for any number of extreme actions that would have been thought disqualifying a decade ago.
But the Trump era has made an Oltmann chairmanship plausible for the Colorado Republican Party, perhaps even likely. It’s also certain to ensure even deeper isolation of the party from the rest of Colorado.
