Calls grew Saturday for Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams to resign as the GOP chair of one of the state’s largest counties sought to oust him from his party’s top position.
“This is a heavy-handed move, but what Dave has been doing these past few months is no longer acceptable,” Jefferson County Republican Party Chairwoman Nancy Pallozzi told Colorado Politics after filing a petition Friday calling for a vote to fire Williams.
“He’s not speaking for the Republican Party, he’s speaking for himself,” Pallozzi said.
Williams told Colorado Politics he’s not going anywhere.
Pallozzi said he believes Williams crossed a line last week when the state political party sent out a mass email attacking Pride Month just days after the LGBTQ community kicked off its annual observance.
“June is upon us and the atheists in our society are once again attacking what is decent, holy and righteous and ultimately seeking to harm our children,” said the email, signed by Williams and titled “God Hates Pride.” The email also called LGBTQ people “creepy,” “depraved,” “atheists” and “degenerates.”
The state Republican Party also took to social media to call for people to “burn all Pride flags in June.”
“This final email is the end of it,” Pallozzi said. “It was awful. I do not endorse burning the Pride flag. It’s a message that should never have been sent by the Republican Party.”
State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, a Republican candidate for the 8th Congressional District in 2022, urged Williams in a social media post on Saturday: “Resign!”
“Under the leadership of Dave Williams, the messaging from the state Republican Party has been divisive, fueled by hateful narratives rather than focusing on the things that unite us,” Kirkmeyer said.
“Dave Williams has used state Republican Party funds that should be used to defeat Democrats to promote his own candidacy, attack Republicans, and most recently spread a message of hate,” she said. “It is past time to part ways with Dave Williams. His tactics are undermining our ability to improve Colorado.”
Williams is one of two Republican candidates vying for the seat vacated by retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn, but has faced criticism from Republicans for using her position as state party representative to help Lamborn’s campaign.
Pallozzi announced Friday that he is calling for Williams’ resignation and is collecting signatures from Republicans who support his resignation.
“It is clear, especially after this latest email message, that Dave Williams’ leadership is not aligned with the majority of Colorado Republicans,” the statement said, claiming it had the support of multiple anonymous county Republican chairs and party officials from each of Colorado’s 64 counties.
“We are calling on Mr. Williams to immediately resign as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party and urge him to do so so we can bring in a new chairman who will help grow the party, support all of our candidates and county organizations, and bring unity.”
Pallozzi said he had already collected the number of signatures needed from members of the state Republican Central Committee by noon Saturday to convene a meeting to consider whether to remove Williams from his job.
According to the party’s bylaws, 25 percent of committee members must call an emergency meeting of the governing body, which can then remove party officials with a 60 percent vote.
Pallozzi said he plans to release a list of Republicans who support the move on Monday and submit a petition the same day if Williams does not resign by then.
Williams said he would be happy to discuss the points made in the email.
“I look forward to the debate about informing voters of my position on Pride Month, where I publicly align with Radical Democrats, while defending Pride Month and a harmful agenda against children,” Williams said in a text message.
“We are not worried about these discussions and if people want a special meeting, we will accommodate that,” he added.
Several Republican House candidates who are also members of the Republican State Central Committee told Colorado Politics they have already signed Perozzi’s petition or plan to do so before she makes it public.
Rep. Richard Holtorf, an Akron Republican running in the expected hotly contested 4th District primary, said he has been calling for Williams to resign for months and recently urged county Republican officials to start a petition like the one Pallozzi is circulating.
“I am pleased to see Jeffco moving forward,” Holtorf said in a text message.
One of Holtorf’s rivals in the House primary, state Rep. Mike Lynch, of Wellington, said in a text message that he was representing Colorado at the national convention and therefore “somewhat removed” from the recent furor surrounding Williams, but that he planned to sign the petition.
“I support any efforts to remove the incompetent leader of the Colorado Republican Party,” Lynch said.
Spokespeople for Gabe Evans, a Fort Lupton Republican running in the 8th Congressional District, and State Board of Education member Steven Barrera, one of six Republicans running in the 3rd Congressional District, said both House candidates support Williams’ removal from office and have signed the petition.
El Paso County Republican Party Vice Chairman Todd Watkins told Colorado Politics he supports removing Williams as chairman, adding that he has long believed Williams’ dual role as party leader and congressional candidate was a disqualifying conflict of interest.
“Dave has proven that: You can’t do it both,” Watkins said. “You can’t be the chairman of a party and run for Congress at the same time. He has completely taken advantage of his position of control over all the money, all the resources, and diverted them to his own campaign.”
Watkins said the state party’s email, aimed at Pride Month, heightened the risk.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Watkins said. “How can I, as a Colorado Republican, defend myself now when the leader of my party speaks for all Republicans by saying this? How can you convince me I’m not a Christian nationalist or a right-wing extremist? You’re going to condemn everyone simply for living a certain lifestyle? That seems like an extreme judgment coming from a very minority party in this state.”
Watkins added: “He used his position as chairman to talk about religious purity. It goes beyond ideological purity. We are a political party, not a church organisation. Dave is not a prophet. He does not speak for Almighty God.”
El Paso County Republican Party Chairwoman Vicki Tonkins, a longtime ally of Williams, told Colorado Politics she has no plans to sign Pallozzi’s petition.
“Of course not,” Tonkins said in an email. “This is a Trump-hating witch hunt seeking to continue Christy Barton Brown’s destructive work!”
Williams’ predecessor as state party chairman, Burton Brown, took issue with Tonkins’ portrayal of Williams’ critics.
“I think the State Central Committee has the right to consider its options,” Burton Brown, who is running for state school board in the 4th Congressional District, said in a text message. “And this has nothing to do with disliking Trump. Every county chair will be endorsing him as their candidate this year.”
Boulder County Republican Party Chairwoman Tara Menza said she plans to meet with other Republican officials in the county over the weekend but will support the effort to remove Williams from office.
“We’re still in the process of discussing strategies,” she said. “The problem at the moment is we don’t have a successor in place. We can’t just ask people to step down.”
However, Menza made it clear that he disagrees with Williams’ recent actions.
“We have to be sensitive to party politics, but I don’t support any hatred or division,” Menza said.
“Boulder County has more LGBTQ voters than most other places, and Dave has alienated our entire constituency, especially our county’s political party, which has worked so hard to be part of the community,” Menza said. “That’s not OK. We’re a large organization that supports individual rights, and Dave is just ignoring that. I don’t appreciate that.”
