She is the chief kitten herder of the Colorado Republican Party.
Bretta Horne, welcome back to the show, having me Mandy.
So, Okay, so since last week spoke Bretta, so much has happened now. I talked about the fact that a week ago Saturday, I'm minding my own beeswax, just you know, going through my day, and all of a sudden, my phone starts lighting up with text messages from people saying, Oh my gosh, I just came from the State Assembly. I have no idea what happened. I think we opted out,
but I'm not sure. I have no idea. So I'm going to ask you to tell my listeners what happened in that meeting, and then we'll get to the Secretary of State's office in just a second. So what happened in that meeting?
Britta?
Okay, thank you very much.
So we had a meeting and it was the five hundred and you know, three people. It's the State Central Committee, which is from the sixty four counties, three people from each one on the chair of the vice the secretary, and then bonus members based on whether or not the population of that of that county. So it's five hundred, a handful of people, and we all got together to go over just really the opt out vote, whether we're
going to vote on or not. We had a couple of items laid over because they were table from the meeting before, and it just like we went in there with the understanding that we have to have this vote per law, and we had had it between it was August fifteenth and October first, So we picked the twenty seventh in so September and we decided, you know, you have to have this vote, and by law you need to have seventy five percent to want to do it of that body to opt out of the primary, and
opting out means that there would be no paper ballots to anybody, and that just these five hundred people and then PCPs precinct chair people, that's a whole other rabbit trail would go to have assemblies or conventions next spring and only vote for one person for each seat within that district, that community, that county, that and then and then we'd have to have a big one for the whole the state seats, no petitioning on, no paper blots
going to any of the nine hundred thousand plus Republicans, and obviously the independence in Colorado, nothing going.
Over to.
Military overseas, nothing, It would just be decided by that small percentage.
And let me just I'm gonna I want to drive this point home because there is a big, old, fat misconception that if the Republican Party opted out of the primary, the open primary, that they would somehow be able to hold another primary and let all of the nine hundred thousand plus Republicans that are registered here vote on our candidates.
And I keep telling people to your point what you just said, all this would do if we opt out of the primaries, it would put the power of choosing the general election candidates in the hands of a very small group of people. So would essentially disenfranchise about nine hundred and seventy five thousand Republicans.
It would take away our ability to.
Choose our candidate, and in doing so, it's very reminiscent of the way Kamala Harris became the candidate for the Democratic Party because I said, I said the other day, I'm like, we still don't know who decided that. At least we'd know the people that were choosing our candidates. But then I'll let you continue. I just want to reiterate that point. We would not have a primary. We would have a small group of party insiders who work
very hard for the party. I don't want to in any way, shape or form, you know, denigrate the work.
That they do.
But I don't want to concede my primary vote to five hundred people in change or six hundred, whatever the number is. So go ahead and tell me what happened next.
So we had we had to go.
We had it as our first item, after all the you know, the minutes, We kept the rules of the last time, you know, we do all the things, and it was next, and then there was just that's when it started that they wanted to have these things that we were laying over first and not this vote and put that second.
So we had to go through all those pieces and.
It just was It was very rowdy, and it was very loud, and people were acting as they would and so it just took a lot.
It was a lot of confusion, a lot of chaos. It was clumsy.
We got through it to the point where we had to leave the building because we only had it for X number of hours and our security of the Captain of the police force it like it's time to go. So we never had the vote. So unbeknownst to what people are trying to say and trying to trick everybody and with their with their wordsmithing, it didn't happen. We
didn't have the vote. We had to vote over another item that was laid over from the Assembly a year and a half ago down Plublo, and they were trying to change the minutia of that, trying to change that into from a controversy and I know we're going down the rabbit trail a controversy into a resolution and try to get that to be the vote, and it can't. You have to have the vote there and seventy five percent, So let's say vote.
Yeah, let's talk about what happened that year ago in Pueblo, because there was a vote opped out of the primary. But the language, the statutory language in the Colorado bill about open primaries says, do you have to have seventy five percent of the state Central Committee? Right, not seventy five percent of the people who are present. Seventy five percent of the state Central Committee have to vote to op out of the primary. Did that happen in twenty twenty four.
No, that wasn't and that was a state Assembly, not the State Central Committee.
So that was thousands of people. I don't remember, three.
And a half, maybe four thousands, And it was a controversy trying to turn into a resolution and having people stand up and.
They weren't even the people that should be voting.
And to turn that around into something else, and it just was because it was an even year.
We can only do these.
Odd years during certain days. So we had to straight up have that vote. That vote didn't happen, that other one voted, you know, we voted on whether that was true or not or we're going to apply for it. And we did a role called vote and only forty four percent of that.
Five hundred people total.
Pass what wanted it, So it didn't pass because you need seventy five percent.
So it again it was never there. There's no there there.
So they didn't follow this statue yet.
Rule of law, follow the rules, and they did the seventy five percent of the those present and in proxy that's how we got that five hundred number.
Did not vote at seventy five percent level.
Okay, So what was given to the Secretary of State's office after the meeting, because this is where it gets really ridiculous and interesting.
So there was one of those other pieces laid over was that a person and myself, you know, does this body want us to jointly go together and turn in the results. Somebody went ahead and did that on their own.
C seed me.
Was not joint as I read it, read it or my are you know the party read it? You know, the GOP State Central Committee, the whole group together of us, the executive board, did not even executive just the electeds. They swore that that that what happened and that nothing could be further from the truth.
So we had to they said that we affirmed they opt out and this Britta, why this is also frustrated And then you basically the same information. Look, we didn't opt out on anything to the secretary. And you're just waiting to hear from Jennick Grisweld's office now about what.
Oh no, we heard from him last week. Oh no, no, no, we heard from him last week. The office. So the chief of staffputy chief of staff.
And their legal counsel, senior league counsel. We managed to get a phone call with them of the staff and they said thank.
You very much for following rule of law. We agree with you.
Okay, So that's been put to bed. And the reason that this, well, I mean in my mind.
That's been put to bed, but obviously that's not the mind of some members of the Republican Party, which brings me to my second point that I want to talk about really quickly on the blog. Today, I have some really interesting polling from.
From Forbes and Forbes. The headline on Forbes dot.
Com is, well, maybe if I can get to the headline, new polls show Bluesteak Colorado is in play for Republicans. I saw that and I thought to myself, but are Republicans going to be able to capitalize on it?
So, Britta, I am not fond it.
As a matter of fact, when you go look at my cartoon that I made for today that I put on my social media to promote the blog, I'm pretty proud of it. And the likeness of you is just a rough likeness. I didn't really drill down, but you know, I captured the hair and all that. So well, we have some people represented on that cartoon and they've created a faction of the Republican Party that is very very
very persistent about opting out of the primaries. Now we already have a lawsuit going on right now, correct about opting out of the primaries, about changing the law, which is what I think needs to happen, right.
Absolutely, So that one is over Proposition one eight for years ago, and that was already done two years ago that they were going to do do it. There's a group of people that are saying, and we believe this as GOPS, that it's it's in our belief it's unconstitutional for a certain group to get two ballots a Democrat and Republican ballot.
So we figured that it's unconstitutional.
We don't know anywhere in the world that gets to do that that a certain group gets two ballots, it has to turn in one that has a militia. A lot of other reasons why that's a I believe it's a bad idea. We can talk about another time.
So it's supposed to be going to the Supreme Court.
And so there's groups of people working on that with Claremont Institute to take that to the Supreme Court, going as this constitutional.
Are not constitutional because.
Back in twenty fifteen before I think we all remember it, I remember it. If an independent wanted to be a part of the primary process, they just had to do what you can do in Colorado, same day, voteric younger registration and get that ballot, decide and then change back. You know, shenanigans have been going on for years of that happening before eight. So that's where we are heavy that lawsuit. I'm not we will not hear an answer for the twenty sixth election.
Right this is the game that we.
Have in front of us, and that's it, Britta.
We have to play the game that's in front of it. Were the rules, Yeah, we can't take a football to a tennis netch, No, we got tennis.
We've got to play the game as the rules are written. Right now, And know that this lawsuit is working its way through, and I realize it's very frustrating, and I realize it takes forever, and I realized that I get it. I understand all of those frustrations. But but what's happening right now with this divisiveness in the Republican Party is we're about to snatch defeat from potential jaws of victory.
And you know, we've just got to get We've got to restore some balance to the legislature more than anything.
Absolutely, and we're not going to let this faction. We're not gonna let this small, the small part of the greater picture to win the bigger picture. We're finding other groups to work with.
We're finding very conservative groups to work with, other organizations.
We're within the party. You still have a lot of people that want to win.
We want to win, and the only way to win is to put more you know, points on the board we have.
That's the only way. So we have to reach out to them. And I'm just going to share with.
You what I've seen the best part of this job right now. And I know there's a lot of good things, and I love all of it, and I love getting up in the morning and hitting the ground running and let's go is sadly, Sadly the Republican nine to eleven was nine ten when Charlie.
Kirk was murdered.
Yep.
Daily, we are getting people coming into the party. They're coming through you know, reaching out to us through X you.
Know, individually, our website.
We're just getting people constantly coming in and I get to take every one of those calls, call them, talk to them, find where they want to be, what do they want to do. It's people that are getting off the fence and finally know that they're conservatives.
They're the gen z z's.
That are really happy to be around. I was even talking to a high schooler yesterday and the high.
Schooler was going, what can I do? And I mean, I'm not gonna show his naghbors.
Yeah, he'll be sixteen this week and I'm like, go to go do your pre registration to be sixteen, and I'm gonna find you a can I help with with school board And I'm gonna find you a group that you can work with high school you know, conservatives and through turning.
Point, we're just gonna plug everybody in. That's how big.
Everyone's looking for community, everybody's looking for relationship and.
We all need to win.
Amen to that.
Brenda Horne, chairman of the Colorado GOP. Chief Kitten Hurder of the Colorado GOP. I do not enview you that job at all. Thank you for making time for me today.
I appreciate it.
Don't forget to hit the donate button over at Colorado gop dot org.
Very good. Thanks, Brenda's that's what you do when you are the actual chair of a political party.
You remind people to hit the donate button.