Principles Over Progress

by Ashe in America | May 19, 2026 | Feature Story Bottom Left

ASHE IN AMERICA

— OPINION

Republicans in Colorado are trading representation for control — and calling it “conservatism.”

How we give our consent to be governed matters. But it’s worse than fake elections. The founding idea of representation itself has been abandoned (almost entirely) in favor of personality-based battles for the right to claim decision rights.

Explain to me how wielding a massive government apparatus for social change is a conservative value?

You can’t. It’s not.

In recent weeks, apportionment (redistricting) lawsuits have dominated the headlines as both national parties try to rig their way to 270 electoral votes.

Rearranging districts to protect incumbents or expand party-held seats to counter the “representation” of another state is, if we’re being intellectually honest, one of the purest forms of election manipulation. And it’s been normalized for so long that Americans don’t even question it.

Apportionment only happens in this way because representation was capped at 435 in the House of Representatives in 1929, so the constitutional ratio of representation has been continually diluted with population growth since the 20th century. As a result, we “require” the intervention of partisan-first legislatures to make the districts “fair.”

My Congresswoman, Representative Lauren Boebert (R, CO-04), “represents” around 756,000 Colorado residents. That’s a 25-fold dilution of representation per capita since America’s founding era.

Now, we’re hearing “kill the caucus” refrains from so-called “Republicans” — again — but if you ask them why they’re abandoning representation, you’re met with disdain-filled and puddle-deep talking points:

“It doesn’t work.”

“It favors the fringe.”

“It’s too volatile and unpredictable.”

If the process favors the fringes, it’s only because the more “mainstream” candidates can’t — or won’t — compete. So, they advocate for petition-only ballot access — centralizing access to the ballot in the hands of the Secretary of State.

Reminder: Centralization creates complexity, and complexity breeds and hides corruption.

Some on “the right” claim petitions are more representative than local, bottom-up organizing. Crazy — that’s a main policy position of progressive legal activists like Marc Elias and Norm Eisen: Centralize elections at the state level and remove the “pageantry of democracy” from the local jurisdictions.

Those guys are both conservatives, right?

The real answer to why Republicans are attempting to destroy the most accessible and representative process for ballot access that we have is simple: It’s too hard.

It’s not actually hard, but it is involved. It’s ground game and education and building net­works — building party infrastructure for intentional change. Those raising the banner most highly point to dwindling party engagement and a devastating Republican brand problem.

Both of those data points are true. But they’re the natural and intended outcomes of open primaries, poor resource allocation, and sustained Republican infighting.

Republicans haven’t tried building party infrastructure — and Republicans with the backing of the donor class spend their time fighting those who do.

On the other side of that divide, largely self-organized groups inside the counties — the so-called “fringe” — have done the work. They recruited their neighbors and drove people to caucus and organized for their candidates and causes in advance of the Assembly. They built coalitions and worked phones and knocked doors and evangelized representation to unexpecting Colorado voters at bars and sporting events and grocery stores. Show up — make your voice heard.

They built relationships. They won hearts and minds. Again, it’s not hard. But it’s also not easy.

At this point, critics will shout about Unaffiliated voters — that the caucus process disenfranchises them. That’s nonsense.

Unaffiliated (UAF) voters — now more than 50% of Colorado’s electoral franchise — can vote in either party’s primary but not participate in caucuses. When one party lacks competitive primaries, UAFs can (and do) cross over and influence the other party’s nominee selection.

The caucus preserves internal party business for party members — and if we have open primaries (which I also, as a proud unaffiliated voter, oppose) UAFs can still vote in the actual primary. They shouldn’t. If parties have no control over their own candidate selection, they’re ideologically incoherent and have no real purpose. This is where we are now — with recent litigation and years long internal warring allowing UAFs to select Republican candidates.

If you’re going to have a party at all, it must be coherent. It arguably should be the people, in community, organizing for change (as opposed to dark money anointing the next “representative”).

But the caucus is unpredictable and messy — just like America — and requires that you earn legitimate power through your ideas and hard work to make those ideas heard. More importantly, it upends the centrally managed corporate structure where candidates line up before (bipartisan) donors for their chance to lose on purpose.

That’s terrifying for those next in line.

When ordinary Americans read the rule book, learn the bylaws, and decide they can play, too, the establishment demands their access be abolished. They change the bylaws or find loopholes and expend resources to enter court.

Welcome to the brand problem.

The 2022 assembly was the largest attended in a decade. The years that followed were marred by financial scandal and inter-party lawsuits and a shadow GOP and competing official meetings — and arguably irreparable fractures in any potential for unity.

The 2026 assembly was one of the least attended.

But rather than be honest about that journey…

“See! We told you it doesn’t work! Bring on rank choice voting!”

“Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.” — Thor Heyerdahl

To recap, the ratio is diluted, the districts are rigged, and the party apparatus inverted power and is now advocating to abolish bottom-up representation in favor of central control.

“A Republic, if you can keep it.” — Benjamin Franklin

Ashe Epp is a local writer, host, and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.