It claims that one of the complainants is Burton Brown’s own father, Michael Burton, and calls into question Burton Brown’s impartiality. The response argues the special meeting would violate state law and it asserts that the complainants lack evidence for the misconduct they allege. “The state party chair has chosen to drag the entire (State Central Committee) into a county conflict because a small group of disgruntled agitators lost the party leadership election two years ago and now wish to strip voting rights from properly seated (precinct committee persons) so they can orchestrate a coup in next month’s county leadership elections,” the response says. Dave Williams and Gordon Klingenschmidt, and current state Reps. Tonkins’ formal response to the call for the special meeting was sent Monday morning and was signed by dozens of El Paso County party members, including former and current officeholders, such as former state representative and former candidate for U.S Senate Ron Hanks, former state Reps. The county party’s vice chair, Karl Schneider, has long called on Tonkins to resign. State party officials formally censured Tonkins in December, saying Tonkins rejected her duties as county chair when she actively opposed numerous Republican candidates before the November election. “Too many people from across the state have reached out to me regarding election integrity and questions involving El Paso County,” Burton Brown wrote in an email last week calling the meeting. The last El Paso reorganizational meeting, in 2021, when Tonkins won her current term as chair, was marred by accusations that voters were disenfranchised, and fears that the upcoming election for party officers can’t be trusted proved persuasive enough for Burton Brown to call the special meeting. The purpose of the meeting, called by Burton Brown, is to determine whether “a neutral party” should step in to conduct the El Paso party’s reorganizational meeting in early February, when the county’s party officers will be elected, and whether state party officials can “ensure that a legally valid list of voters” is used in the election. 31 of the state party’s Central Committee.

Tonkins’ performance as head of the biggest GOP county party in the state is the subject of a special meeting on Jan. It is among the latest developments in a showdown over Tonkins’ leadership, which is fiercely defended by a Colorado Springs-area faction of far-right activists and officeholders who style themselves the “grassroots” soul of the party and stridently denounced by the party’s more traditionally conservative members.

Do Justice by Kristi Burton Brown