The Colorado Republican Party has denounced two GOP state lawmakers and two local officials for signing a letter last month that objected to Montana Republicans’ decision to ban a Democratic lawmaker from that state’s House floor.

The four reprimanded Republicans say they were defending the First Amendment rights of legislators to speak out — all the more important a point, they argue, because majority Democrats routinely silenced Republicans during the legislative session.

The Colorado GOP’s executive committee, however, contend in a resolution approved on Monday that the elected GOP officials were “helping radical Democrats to score political points by spreading lies against Montana House Republicans.”

In a lengthy resolution, the state party’s governing board said it “formally admonishes, rebukes, and reprimands” Republican state Reps. Ron Weinberg of Loveland and Rick Taggart of Grand Junction, Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon and Castle Pines Councilman Roger Hudson, who is also the Colorado House Republicans’ deputy chief of staff.

“From time to time, it’s the responsibility of any organization to hold its members accountable for harmful decisions they make,” Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams wrote in an email scheduled to go out to the party’s mailing list Wednesday morning.

“Elected Republicans should know better and understand the stakes,” Williams added.

At issue is a May 1 letter the four signed expressing support for state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a Montana Democrat, after the state’s Republican supermajority banned the transgender lawmaker from the chamber following a protest against an earlier move to prevent her from debating a bill to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

“We, the undersigned Colorado elected officials, express our extreme dismay at your decision to prohibit Representative Zooey Zephyr from participating in the legislative process and representing her district,” read the letter, which was organized by state Rep. Brianna Titone, an Arvada Democrat and the first transgender lawmaker elected to Colorado’s General Assembly.

“We rise in support of a lawmaker who is doing what she has been charged to do: Stand up and speak out on behalf of constituents on issues directly impacting them,” the letter continued.

In addition to the four Republicans, it was signed by all 46 Democratic House members, 16 Senate Democrats, Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold, State Treasurer Dave Young and 10 local government officials.

Williams argued in the email explaining the reprimand that Democrats only asked Republicans to sign the letter in order to create “‘bipartisan’ political cover … if they had any chance of tricking the public into thinking they truly support free speech and thoughtful debate.”

“The Democrat letter these misguided Republicans affixed their names to falsely attacked Montana House Republicans for regaining order in their chamber after a transgender representative from their state incited violence and disrupted their legislative proceedings in an attempt to stop a bill that would rightfully prohibit so-called gender affirming care for children,” Williams wrote.

Zephyr and her defenders dispute the accusation that she “incited violence.”

Continued Williams: “Hypocritical Colorado Democrats only wrote their deceptive letter to deflect the criticism they had received for actually silencing debate and stopping Colorado Republicans from representing the concerns of their constituents.”

The state GOP’s resolution also praised the Republican legislators who didn’t sign the letter for “not falling for this false narrative and propaganda ploy” and concluded with an apology to the Montana House Republicans and the state’s GOP “for the disgraceful actions of the four elected local and state Republican officeholders who were willing pawns to an outrageous publicity stunt on behalf of the Colorado House Democrats and Rep. Brianna Titone.”

Titone called the suggestion she sought “cover” for the letter she led “patently ridiculous.”

“They silenced someone for petty reasons, and this is a slippery slope we’re walking down if we’re allowing this to happen without calling it out,” she said.

Titone said the state GOP’s resolution “seems like a pretty over-the-top reaction.”

“Anybody who supports our democratic process should be concerned when someone gets thrown out of a chamber for saying something that upsets somebody,” she said.

Weinberg swung back at the resolution on Tuesday.

“As a Republican, I stand for individual liberty and freedom and the right to say what you want to say,” Weinberg told Colorado Politics.

He said that he appreciated the irony of being reprimanded by fellow Republicans for defending a legislator’s right to participate in the legislative process, considering what happened to GOP lawmakers in Colorado’s recent legislative session.

“We walked out on the last day because we were being silenced,” Weinberg said. “The fact that it’s Montana, involving a transgender person, is on top of the fact that someone got silenced like a dog. I can’t imagine [Speaker] Julie McCluskie would do something like this.”

Noting that he was a member of the state executive committee when he chaired the Larimer County GOP, Weinberg said he doesn’t see how the reprimand advances the cause of Republicans “in any way.”

“It’s a little embarrassing, and I wish they had asked for my side of the story first,” added Weinberg, a South African immigrant. “It feels like the party is abandoning me, and I’ve been a loyal conservative ever since becoming a citizen in 2015.”

Hudson said he signed the letter as an elected member of city council and was confident Castle Pines would stand behind what he signed.

“As an American, I have a First Amendment right to do and say as I wish without checking in with anyone else, certainly not Dave Williams,” he added.

“Being a Republican has some, I believe, some benefits, and it’s being able to wave the flag and talk about the First Amendment and Second Amendment and all the amendments,” Hudson said. “Criticizing anyone for exercising those freedoms when we declare them so loudly in our rallies sand our parades and our speeches makes no sense to me. I’m baffled by this entire process. It seems like a political stunt that Williams and a political cabal that follows him seem to be drinking Bud Light and mimicking something they may have seen on Fox News.”

Laydon, who is participating in a public policy fellowship out of state this week, slammed the proposed resolution in a letter to the state Republican committee.

Noting that recent elections have left Colorado Republicans with less power statewide than at any time since World War II, Laydon wrote: “The Colorado Republican Party cannot afford further division, especially over Montana politics. The day we stop supporting the United States Constitution and the First Amendment in Colorado is the moment that we lose the final vestiges of confidence that our fellow citizens, our voters, and our donors have invested in our significant leadership since our statehood in 1876.”

Laydon pointed out that he chairs the board of commissioners in “the last conservative county in the Denver metro area” and has been an officer in the county party. “I will continue to actively fight censorship, book burning, and any other fascist behaviors which our brave men and women in the military fought and died to overcome,” he wrote.

Added Laydon: “I have faith that as intelligent, right-minded Colorado Republicans, you will also continue to honor what our flag stands for and never bow to those that would censor speech, even speech we may disagree with. Will it be your speech they try and take away next? Not on my watch.”

Titone said that she has spoken with Zephyr since her Montana colleagues banned her from the House floor.

“The whole incident has not taken away her voice,” Titone said. “She’s everywhere, on the news, in the headlines, talking about what’s happening. If they sought out to silence her, maybe in that chamber, but not everywhere else.”

Reporter Marianne Goodland contributed to this story.