April 01, 2026 01:08 PM UTC

Colorado Republicans Get Court Permission To Wall Out The World

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Seth Klamann reports, Colorado Republicans scored a substantial victory today in their years-long quest to extricate themselves from the requirement imposed by Proposition 108 to allow unaffiliated voters to participate in that party’s primary elections:

The ruling, in a case filed by the Colorado GOP, did not fully strike down Proposition 108, which opened up primaries to participation by party faithful and unaffiliated voters alike. But in the decision issued on Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer wrote that the law puts a “severe burden” on parties that want to opt out of the open primaries…

The law says that if a political party wants to close its primary so that only its own registered voters can participate, 75% of that party’s central committee must vote in support of the change. That threshold is unconstitutionally high, Brimmer wrote.

“The background and origin of the three-fourths opt-out provision is unclear,” Brimmer, who is based in Denver, wrote. “What is clear is that it constitutes an unusual and difficult barrier for the central committee to overcome, more akin to a hurdle to amend a foundational governing document, such as the United States Constitution, than a traditional means of regulating political parties.”

The ruling did not specify what would be a fair process for parties to opt out of allowing unaffiliated voters to participate, and did not explain how to proceed with primary elections this year. There’s no analogous push on the Democratic side to exclude unaffiliated voters from their primary–this has been exclusively a campaign waged by far-right Republican party activists, frustrated that their faction has not prevailed in GOP primaries against better-funded “corporate” Republicans. Former GOP chairman Dave Williams made opting out of open primaries his second-highest priority behind hijacking the party for his personal advancement. 2020 Trump coup plotter John Eastman was a lead attorney on the GOP’s case up until his disbarment.

Assuming they get their way, if not in time for the June 30th primary then in 2028, all this will do is isolate the Republican Party in Colorado even farther from the mainstream of the electorate, and help cement the state’s already basically permanent Democratic majority. Unaffiliated voters aren’t naively led around by campaign spending; they apply a crucial moderating influence. In recent Republican primaries, they have arguably made the difference between nominating a contender with a shot at winning versus an unelectable crackpot.

The problem for Colorado Republicans, at least in the last decade, is that the crackpots are in charge. The crackpots are who they want.