A lawyer representing the Colorado GOP subpoenaed a top Republican in the state House last week for records from his 2020 campaign in the latest example of how fractured the party is becoming as election season kicks into high gear.
The subpoena, issued by Colorado GOP attorney Randy Corporon and targeting former House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, R-Wellington, was served as part of the GOP’s drawn-out federal lawsuit seeking to block unaffiliated voters from casting ballots in Colorado’s partisan primaries.
The subpoena seeks all documents and communications related to expenditures “for voter contact through advertisements, direct mail, digital communications, telephone communications or other means” in House District 49, including those with Kathryn Murdoch, Kent Thiry and Unite America.
In 2020, Lynch was running in the Republican primary in House District 49 against against Vicki Marble, then a state senator. The race was one of several GOP primary contests that year that became proxy battles between more mainstream groups, supporting candidates like Lynch, and more hard-line conservative groups, which supported candidates like Marble. (Marble, when she was in the legislature, was a conservative firebrand with a penchant for making offensive remarks.)
Unite America’s federal political action committee, through Colorado subsidiaries, spent in a handful of races to support more mainstream Republican candidates, but campaign finance records show the Lynch-Marble race wasn’t one of them. Lynch got help from other groups though, including Ready Colorado, a conservative education policy nonprofit.
At the time, Murdoch, a daughter-in-law of conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, served as vice president of Unite America, which advocates for what it considers a more functional government. Murdoch and Thiry, the wealthy former CEO of the Denver-based dialysis giant DaVita, are now co-chairs of Unite America’s board.
Thiry was also heavily involved in the 2016 ballot measure, Proposition 106, that let unaffiliated voters participate in partisan primaries.
The subpoena also seeks from Lynch “all documents and communications related to polling, research and/or analysis of the views and candidates being supported by unaffiliated voters and/or voters affiliated with the Republican Party” with respect to Lynch’s GOP primary that year.
Lynch, who is running for Congress in the 4th Congressional District Republican primary that includes U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, won 67% of the vote to Marble’s 23%.
Welcome to The Unaffiliated, the politics and policy newsletter from The Colorado Sun. Twice a week, we take you inside the political arena to deliver news and insights on Colorado politics. Keep reading for even more exclusive news.
If you’re reading this newsletter but not signed up for it, here’s how to get it sent directly to your email inbox. And please send feedback and tips to jesse@coloradosun.com.
MORE: The Colorado Sun asked Corporon and Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams why the party was subpoenaing Lynch and whether subpoenas had been issued to anyone other than Lynch.
“No comment,” Corporon said in a text message.
Williams didn’t respond. But we know that when he served in the legislature with Lynch, the two men were part of opposite factions of the House Republican caucus. And we know the thinking behind the Colorado GOP’s lawsuit is that unaffiliated voters participating in primaries results in less conservative candidates being sent to general elections.
“I think this is a continuation of an active ploy to destroy the state party by attacking fellow Republicans,” Lynch told The Sun on Monday.
But Lynch, who said he will comply with whatever he must legally, said he’s not totally sure what Corporon and the Colorado GOP are seeking or aiming to prove.
“My best guess is that I was effective in unseating a sitting state senator that fell into their camp in ideology and they’re trying to make sure I don’t do that again to Boebert,” Lynch said, a nod to how Williams and the Colorado GOP have endorsed Boebert in the 4th District Republican primary.
A spokesperson for Unite America confirmed that the organization’s federal PAC, too, had received a subpoena in the lawsuit. A representative for Thiry said he had not as of Monday, nor had a number of other mainstream Republican candidates who ran in contentious primaries in Colorado in 2020, including former state Reps. Colin Larson, Dan Woog and Tonya Van Beber.
In February, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer denied a request from the Colorado GOP to issue a preliminary injunction in the Proposition 106 lawsuit. That means it may be years before the case is resolved.
ADDENDUM: In addition to Corporon, the Colorado GOP has also been represented in the lawsuit by John Eastman, a former University of Colorado visiting conservative scholar who tried to help Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
But last week, a judge presiding over the case found that Eastman is no longer an attorney in good standing in the U.S. District Court in Colorado because of a recommendation in California last month that he be disbarred.
The court’s rules state: “An attorney who is not in good standing shall not practice before the bar of this court or continue to be an attorney of record in any pending case.”
Williams said in an appearance last week on a conservative talk radio show that Eastman had already primarily shifted his responsibilities in the case to Corporon.
WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEK
CHART OF THE WEEK
Super PAC spending in Colorado ahead of the 2024 election has been pretty limited thus far, but three groups have dropped roughly $700,000 combined supporting Colorado congressional candidates.
Americans for Prosperity Action, the super PAC operated by the national conservative political nonprofit of the same name, accounted for nearly half of that spending. It’s backing three Republican congressional candidate in Colorado this year:
The other major super PAC spending in Colorado so far this election cycle happened last year:
YOU HEARD IT HERE
Duran had previously declined to say how she would vote on the bill, which would ban the purchase, sale and transfer of a broad swath of semiautomatic firearms, defined in the measure as assault weapons.
In her speech on the House floor Sunday, Duran reiterated that, as a domestic violence survivor, she is a concealed-carry permit holder and that she owns AR- and AK-style weapons.
And she conceded that she “has concerns that the legislation may be too far-reaching.”
But, in the end, Duran said “I must be a voice for what my community is asking for.”
Want to reach Colorado political influencers and support quality local journalism? The Sun can help get your message attention through a sponsorship of The Unaffiliated, the must-read politics and policy newsletter in Colorado. Contact Sylvia Harmon at underwriting@coloradosun.com for more information.
THE POLITICAL TICKER
STATE BUDGET: The House gave final approval to the 2024-25 state budget on Sunday, after the Joint Budget Committee finalized the spending plan last week in conference committee. The Senate did so on Friday. The long bill now heads to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.
COLORADO LEGISLATURE: Sen. Faith Winter, D-Broomfield, returned to the legislature on Monday for the first time since April 4, when she announced that she was seeking medical treatment for alcoholism.
ELECTION 2024: Former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg is on the Republican primary ballot in the 4th Congressional District after his petition signatures were verified last week by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. Meanwhile, in the 5th Congressional District, state Sen. Bob Gardner’s signatures were deemed insufficient, meaning the GOP primary in the district will be between conservative commentator Jeff Crank and Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams.
DEMOCRATS: Colorado Democrats held their state assembly Saturday, electing delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, presidential electors and Democratic National Committee members. Delegates to the assembly, conducted virtually, also nominated two candidates for the Democratic primary ballot in the race to be an at-large University of Colorado regent: attorney Elliott Hood, who received 56% of the vote, and Charles “CJ” Johnson, Ball Corp. vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion, who received 44%.
STORY: State lawmakers take steps to limit HOA foreclosures, equity loss after Colorado Sun investigation
STORY: Controversial effort to impose stricter rules on Colorado charter schools fails in first vote
THE DENVER POST: Colorado lawmakers prepare to relaunch criminal justice commissions amid skepticism from reformers
CBS COLORADO: Colorado group says it has enough signatures for abortion rights ballot measure this fall
COLORADO POLITICS: Ballot measure in Colorado would bar vacancy committee appointees from immediately running for legislative office
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Corrections & Clarifications
Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.
