April 08, 2024 12:26 PM UTC

Dave Williams Tossing Reporter Becomes The Story Of GOP Assemblies

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Republican Party held their state assembly at the state fairgrounds in Pueblo, wrapping up the congressional assemblies on Friday and the party’s platform and agenda Saturday. Unfortunately for candidates who won their respective races, events at the assembly this year were overshadowed by yet another self-inflicted controversy courtesy Colorado Republican Party chairman and CO-05 congressional candidate Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams, who used the opportunity to engage in petty retaliation against one particular Colorado political reporter whose beat is especially problematic for Williams. Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports:

The Colorado Republican Party on Saturday had law enforcement remove a reporter for the Colorado Sun from the GOP’s state assembly in Pueblo because the party’s chairman believes the outlet’s reporting has been “very unfair.”

A Pueblo County sheriff’s deputy escorted Sandra Fish, a long-time political and data reporter for the nonprofit news organization, from the Southwest Motors Events Center on the state fairgrounds, where thousands of Republican delegates from throughout the state convened to conduct party business…

[Fish] covered the previous day’s congressional district assemblies at the same location without incident and was issued press credentials on Saturday by volunteers, but the state GOP’s events coordinator said Fish wasn’t authorized to be there for Saturday’s proceedings, which included speeches by Republican luminaries, votes on party resolutions and election of Colorado’s Republican National Committee members.

Although the optics of tossing a veteran political reporter out of the state assembly after allowing her to cover part of the event without incident are terrible, Williams is correct when he asserts that the meeting is technically a “private” function he can exclude individuals from at will. Williams’ choosing to kick veteran political reporter Sandra Fish from the event in particular, however, is due to Fish’s in-depth reporting on the precarious state of the party’s fundraising efforts under Williams, as well as Williams’ repeated abuse of state party resources to attack his personal political opponents. Even the unapologetically progressive Colorado Times Recorder was allowed to cover the entire event unmolested.

The reaction to Williams’ singling out Sandra Fish has been fierce, not just from her journalist colleagues but also from a variety of fellow Republicans who didn’t want Williams’ actions tainting their own campaigns. Denver7’s Corlette Bordelon:

“It may be one thing to call a reporter’s reporting unfair. It’s an entirely different bridge to cross when you have that reporter removed from a state party assembly. To me, that’s one bridge too far,” [Rep. Matt] Soper said. “The media has a right to be there. Period, end of story.”

Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, who readers already know is no friend of Dave Williams, also sounded her public displeasure:

But when CO-04 congressional candidate Deb Flora spoke up in defense of the First Amendment, Williams via the state party’s official account was waiting to smack her down:

This broadside against Flora is interesting because unlike the Colorado GOP’s vote to formally endorse Donald Trump back in January, we haven’t heard about a vote by the Central Committee to endorse Lauren Boebert in the CO-04 GOP primary. Is this just a decision that Williams gets to make on his own now? A reporter who’s not afraid to wind up on Williams’ blacklist should at least try to ask. The same question would apply to CO-08 candidate Gabe Evans, who exclaimed “This is wrong!” in response to Williams’ actions. Does this mean we should expect the party to endorse Janak Joshi imminently?

Despite the outrage from a fairly broad swath of Republicans in response to Williams’ capricious decision to boot a respected reporter from the state assembly, we don’t expect this to result in any actual sanction for Williams by the party’s central committee, which is the only oversight that exists short of a possible campaign finance law investigation like the one called for by 9NEWS Republican-lite talking head Kelly Maher in her complaint to the Federal Election Commission last week. The central committee has tolerated Williams’ financial excesses and misuse of resources up to now and there’s no reason to expect that to change. Maher’s complaint is unlikely to derail Williams from the only objective he personally cares about, winning the June 25th CO-05 primary. Once that goal is achieved, Dave Williams couldn’t care less what happens to the state party.

The best opportunity to stop Williams was in March of 2023. Now the consequences of failing to stop him are piling up.