March 17, 2026 · Committee on Ethics · 4,866 words · 7 speakers · 76 segments
order miss burger please call the roll representatives Garcia Sander present here here here here all right thank you all for joining we have business ahead of us today in In response to what's happened over the last week, just as a little review, we did get a request for a hearing on March 4th from Representative Weinberg. We met on March 9th to discuss next steps. And then on March 10th, Representative Weinberg sent a request to withdraw his hearing request, which I accepted that request. And so now we are at this stage where we need to determine what we do next, what our final determination may be. I'm going to turn it over to our folks from OLLS first just to maybe give us any more of a status update. Ms. Chase.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the committee, Christy Chase, Office of Legislative Legal Services. I think, Madam Chair, you stated the posture of where you are accurately. So now last steps are to make a final report on the committee's activities and consider whether and to what extent the committee wants to make any recommendations or also there's an option to just dismiss the complaint outright. So your purpose today is to talk about how you want to proceed, whether or not you want to make any recommendations to the body, and what those recommendations might be. I will say that I had shared in your box folder some examples of other final reports from prior ethics committees. As we've talked about many times, the only other committee that found probable cause on a complaint was the Senate Ethics Committee in 2024 with regard to the complaint against Senator Winter. That final report shows some recommendations that that committee made to the president of the Senate at the time.
Great. Yes, so on review, I think that just to start us off, our report, final report, should include an overview of our meetings, just generally speaking, and what was done at each meeting. and then today, you know, reviewing what you have sent us and some of those other examples, I think our committee's job today is to determine what those possible remedies may be that might be included in that report. And just as an overview, you mentioned that one step we could do is to take no action and just say that we found probable cause on the two items that we did and no further action. We certainly, similar to a past example, we could ask for a formal apology in some way. We would need to discuss the reality of that actually happening, I think. there are things from probation. I don't even know what that would look like. We'd have to talk about that. Because one of the probable cause complaints included an allegation of sexual harassment, there's potential training in that area we could ask for. There's a couple that seem to bring a little more true for me, one was an informal expression of disapproval with a letter by the speaker or house leadership. And I would say that would include minority leadership. And stronger than that would be a formal admonition with direction to refrain from the behavior that we found probable cause on. There's fines, there's reprimands, there's censures, there's expulsion, there's higher levels here that we certainly could consider, but just from my review and being a participant on this committee, not necessarily feeling that strongly about those stronger moves. So I want to hear from the committee about what your thoughts might be going forward, what recommendations we would like to consider. Well, let's just start with the informal expression of disapproval with a letter by the speaker or House leadership, including minority leadership, what are committee's thoughts on that step? Representative Garcia-Sander.
It's Tuesday morning. Everybody's kind of quiet. I agree with kind of your rundown of some possible outcomes and I'm not opposed to the informal expression of disapproval or formal admonition.
Anyone else? This needs to be a committee decision, so I do need your input. Representative Soper.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I also would agree with Representative Garcia-Sanders that I would support a letter of informal repelman from House leadership or a letter of admonition. I believe any such letter should start by saying it's not a finding of guilt nor innocence, just that probable cause was held. So therefore, the committee, in my opinion, can't take no action, but that we haven't been able to move to that higher level evidentiary bar where we could take much more formal action. And I would say any such letter, whether it's formal as an admonition or more informal, should really be very clear that the probable cause established here in these two elements are enough to suggest activity that's not becoming of a legislator and that we would remind representative Weinberg and other legislators that people do watch our actions and that it's our responsibility to be examples for the state of Colorado.
Thank you, representative Soper. Representative Mabry.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just say in addition to a letter of admonition, I would support something else on top of that, like training, potentially. I see that an option was in here for Representative Weinberg to obtain sexual harassment training. I know that we have sort of our standard sexual harassment training that every member of the legislature has to take and is required. I think adding something like that to the letter of admonition could be good. It does feel a little strange for me for us to have gone through all of this, and then at the end it's just the Speaker of the House with a letter. So I'm trying to think of ways that we can go maybe a step further than just a letter, and I kind of like the training idea.
With that thought, Representative Mabry, just to discuss, you know, is there any power for that to actually happen? Is there any, I mean, really, is it just we are suggesting that happen as a review, as a recommendation? And, again, any letter that we would send, I would want from the entire House leadership. I want majority and minority leadership to be on that letter. Representative Mabry.
Well, I would say a public recommendation coming from this committee, you know, whether or not Rep. Weinberg takes it, I do think that is substantive.
That's fair. Representative Woodrow.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree with everything everyone has said. And I think in my view it should be a letter of recommendation And we should recommend it be from House majority and minority leadership that we found probable cause that we remind Rep Weinberg like Rep Soper said that we are to be examples and lead by example And I agree with Matt Mabry that we should have in the letter that we're in our communication to leadership that we recommend that they recommend or strongly urge Representative Weinberg to the extent it can't be required some type of training. And I would look at that as substantive as well. So I agree with what's been said. I think that's a good course to follow.
Sounds like, thank you, Representative Woodrow. Sounds like we're leaning more towards this formal admonition kind of expression versus this informal expression from the more, the gravity of the probable cause findings that we had. So that makes sense to me as well. And that can be from the entire House leadership. we're making that direction. I wanted to, as far as the two probable cause items, I think we've been including those in this discussion. I wanted to go also back to the beginning when we had the discussion about the campaign finance issue. And at the time, certainly we didn't find probable cause through this committee. We knew that the Secretary of State's office has their own procedure. Do we want to bring up any of that in this letter as far as why we had deference to the Secretary of State?
Representative Mabry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would say no because we didn't find probable cause there. And so because of that, just looking at the rule and what our charge is, I don't think that's our role since we didn't find probable cause.
Representative Soper.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually would have the opposite opinion that we did have a lengthy discussion about how we were not going to explore the campaign finance piece because it was live, actionable in another juridical body. And that we were yielding to the fact that there was already a dispute resolution in place. and I mean just thinking about the precedent side I mean people will look back on this letter and it's important that they understand the committee's reason
I tend to agree with you representative soper only because we did spend a lot of time on that and we did have reason not to go down the path of probable cause I think it's important that the public, like, yeah, we've been reading these letters from, you know, 15 years ago about how ethics committees proceeded. And I think that's an important kind of historical piece of what the work that we have done. Representative Garcia-Sander.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So just for clarification, the letter would include, it would address the issue, just saying it was discussed and found that there was no probable cause. Another body was looking at it. Exactly, that there was a process already in place, that it was really more proper to be in that other venue than with us, and that was the decision that we made as a group. Mr. DiCecco.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Ed DiCecco, Office of Legislative Legal Services. I do think it is important to mention also that there is no problem there was no finding a probable cause so it's not part of the reason that the recommendation is so you know the reason perhaps that you found there was no probable cause was related to that other body that was hearing it but ultimately this committee did not find probable cause for that for that part okay
Okay. So procedurally, if we are to make decisions as a committee today, is it best for us to separate these out into three separate sections where we vote as a committee on what we're including in this letter? I just want to be clear for the committee that we're going to take a vote on the form and tone of the letter that we're suggesting, this formal admonition on the master key allegation as well as the sexual harassment allegation? And then are we also voting on including this piece about the Secretary of State and campaign financing? So I just need a little direction on what we need to formally vote on. Ms. Chase.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do think that anything that the committee wants specifically to include in the letter in terms of your recommendations, each recommendation should be voted on separately. The discussion of, I don't know if you just want to talk about the campaign finance. I mean, in the history portion of, like, what the committee has done, we would presumably speak about all of the allegations in the complaint and then say no probable cause was found on these allegations, probable cause was found on these others. You can talk more specifically about how much you want to explain your finding on campaign finance if you so choose. That I do think each thing you should consider and ask if there's consensus of the committee to include that or have a specific motion on that. In terms of you spoke a little bit about training, you might want to be clear about what kind of training you want and then have a vote on that I believe there was language that Representative Soper and Representative Woodrow were speaking about this idea that your legislators your conduct is viewed and you have an obligation to be an example if you want to include language along those lines I think that's something that you probably ought to have consensus or a separate motion on as well. And just any substantive component of the letter other than just a general recitation of what, you know, what happened in the committee that's fact-based, you should probably have a separate motion on.
Representative Soper. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Ms. Chase. While you were talking, it was very clear how we should probably structure at least the piece about campaign finance. In my opinion, that should not go into the letter, whichever level we agree on, but the report of the committee, which would be a much more appropriate place to kind of lay the groundwork that the committee considered all of these allegations. We dismissed these on a campaign finance one. We also dismissed it, but for a very specific reason, in that there was another real live proceeding in another body of general competence to be able to find whether or not there was a violation. And at least for the legislative history, that would, in my opinion, suffice.
Thank you, Representative Soper. Representative Mabry.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would also want to include, and we had this discussion sort of in depth on the record, but for me on the campaign finance piece, another reason why I didn't think it was necessarily appropriate for us to find probable cause is a lot of people, whether or not they're members of this body, could have done the same things that he did. you know you're running a long shot campaign and never have any shot at being here but still could face the sort of action that he's facing in front of the Secretary of State so I view our proceedings as about being a member and a lot of that stuff was also about being a candidate which I view as different
things. Representative Soper Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Representative Mabry. Just to add on recollection of the discussion. It's also not just about being a candidate, but the fact that in this particular instance, everything was disclosed. So it wasn't pivoting on undisclosed campaign expenditures. If we're asking for transparency, I mean, it's up to the voters in that particular district and the donors from around the state nation to decide whether that was a wise decision or a good investment. But I agree with you that we should probably also talk about those two reasons All right
Well, it sounds like that part, as far as our report of what the committee did, that the discussion about the campaign finance piece, because it was an allegation that was brought to us, can be in the report that what we discussed and what we decided to do about that. And then, so is there consensus on at least what's in the report, which is just a factual overview of what we've done, which things we discussed that we didn't find probable cause, the ones that we did, and that can be the report. Any objection to that overview of the report? All right, I see consensus on that. So the report will just be that. Now, moving on to what kind of letter of disapproval or admonition that we want to have drafted.
Having some, Mr. DiCieco. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to clarify when you're saying for the letter to be drafted, you're making a recommendation that leadership drafts a letter of admonition, right?
Correct.
Mr. Jaceko, is that how it's been done before where leadership actually drafts the record, the letter, but with our recommendations as to what should be in that letter? Yes. So the one example we had was in 2024. Before the committee recommended, it was in the interim that the Senate president would send a letter, and the Senate president then has discretion whether to follow the recommendation, similar to if the body would follow that recommendation. You would be making a recommendation to the leadership as you define it, and then leadership would decide whether or not to include presumably the two elements, which were, one, was an admonition for the behavior, and two, was some type of sexual harassment training recommendation for that. Thank you for that clarification.
So our job is just to have leadership know that these are the things that we are recommending with a vote of the committee, And then is it once that letter is written or once we are done with our work, we have no input on that letter after this is what I'm getting.
Mr. DiCecco. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. But similar to if you made a recommendation to the body. So, for example, if this committee recommended, or a committee, let's not say this committee, a committee recommends that the House of Representatives censure a member for a particular ethical violation, the body still has to be the one that would have a resolution that potentially would pass or fail in front of the body. In this instance, instead of asking the House of Representatives to take action, it appears you'd be recommending that leadership for the House of Representatives take action. And it would be up to them to incorporate those suggestions. Now, that does not preclude the committee members from potentially or from leadership from hearing input from the committee members, but it's ultimately their call whether to write the letter and what to include in it.
Thank you. Representative Mabry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just going to sort of make a similar point to Director Ducecco, which is I think leadership will have the report. They'll have our recommendations. I don't know necessarily that we need to draft a letter here basically and say, here, give this to Weinberg. We could just say our recommendations are there's an admonishment for this behavior and a recommendation for sexual harassment training. And leadership is going to be capable to do what they will with that recommendation.
Representative Soper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. DiCecco, I just wanted to ask to be very clear. We could actually have a recommendation that's pretty specific to where House leadership could pretty much put that into some sort of a letter to where they're not left guessing what it is that the committee is actually asking for or recommending.
Mr. DiCecco. Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Soper, yes. And it seems as if the committee has fairly precise recommendations that the committee or the leadership would be able to cut and paste, yes, the way you've described it thus far.
Okay. Thanks for all that clarification. So in this recommendation to leadership, first I want to clarify that when we say leadership, are we including the speaker, the majority leader, the minority leader? Is that it? Those three? All right. And then also our recommendation. So I'm going on to another decision by the committee. We are for the behavior that was alleged and reflected at the Brown Palace, and it was number four and six, I think, of our list, the comments directed to Representative Bradley and also what was happening at the Brown Palace. For that admonishment, we are requesting a letter of strong disapproval and with direction to refrain from that behavior, as well as to complete sexual harassment training. Is there sexual harassment training that could be specifically received received by our HR department now that could be on an individualized basis?
Representative DiCecco?
I mean, sorry, Mr. DiCecco. My coffee hasn't kicked in yet either.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, the HR can do individualized training sessions, yes.
Okay. So that part is in our recommendation. Is there any further discussion or is there consensus on that? Raise your hand now. Need to vote? Okay.
Representative Soper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Before making a motion, I have a clarifying question to ask. Do you want me to synthesize into one motion all that has been laid out or each component part? I think we're looking at two parts now on our two probable causes.
Madam Chair, can I get clarification?
Yes.
You spoke specifically about two of the allegations that have been combined into one, and you haven't mentioned the other. So is your concept that you're going to have a separate recommendation with regard to the behavior related to the master key? Yes.
Well, because the first one has not only language about disapproval and direction to refrain from that behavior with the sexual harassment training, my understanding was that's part one, and then we're looking at the master key allegation, which doesn't have any training with it. So that was going to be a separate vote. If we can combine them, I'll combine them. But at the beginning of the committee, it sounded like we were doing these things separately. So I just wanted to be clear.
It doesn't matter.
I think you can separate out the allegations and do recommendations based on the separate allegations, or you could do a recommendation that is we disapprove of the behavior related to all of the allegations and recommend you refrain from it. And then in addition, you could have that as one recommendation and then another recommendation is the training. So you can structure it however. There's other ways to do it, I'm sure, too, but those are two different options.
So you've stated it one way. I see what you're saying. So Representative SOPR, what we'll do is have you make a motion to have the recommendation that we direct leadership to draft a letter of admonition with our probable cause findings of the sexual harassment behavior and the master key behavior to not do that anymore. So that's going to be one motion. and then the second motion is we also are recommending sexual harassment training would be the second motion. That way we're separating them. So when you're ready, I'll entertain a motion.
Representative Soper. Thank you Madam Chair and members of the committee I move that the Committee on Ethics recommends to House leadership specifically the Speaker the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader that a letter of admonition be sent from them to Representative Weinberg, disapproving of the behavior that took place at the Brown Palace as demonstrated by a pattern with sexual harassment and the access of a master key and accessing places at times when he shouldn't have been there, and that this behavior is unbecoming of a legislator, and that the letter further disclosed that this is not necessarily that clear black and white, but that there is still the, you know, we are wanting just a change in behavior, if that makes sense.
All right. A second? Second.
Seconded by Representative Mabry.
Any discussion on this motion? All right. Seeing none, Ms. Berger, please call the roll. Representative Garcia-Sander?
Yes.
Mabry?
Yes.
Woodrow?
Yes.
Yes. That passes five to zero. Now, Representative Soper, regarding the sexual harassment training.
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I move that the committee recommend that Representative Weinberg take a sexual harassment training course from our office of HR office. office. And I guess that's a complete motion. That's included in the letter.
Let me restart this again.
I move to strike that motion and replace with this one. I move that also included within the letter of admonishment that there be a recommendation that Representative Weinberg undertake sexual harassment training through the Legislative Human Resources Office.
Any further discussion on the motion?
Representative Soper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will say this is one that I actually struggle with this one. I think it's one thing to have the letter of admonishment because that seeing behavior that you may not be able to prove one way or the other, but that there was still probable cause to suggest that an intervention was warranted. And that's why the letter is taking place. requiring someone to undertake sexual harassment training to me is something you do when you have that black and white evidence that shows they in fact were engaged in sexual harassment conduct, period, end of story. And the fact that we didn't get to an evidentiary hearing to be able to further establish that, I feel uneasy about making this a recommendation when there are other examples within this building over the last number of years where the evidence was a little bit more cut and dry for making some of these recommendations. And I'm specifically thinking about the Ethics Committee from the Senate with Senator Winter here. I would say the evidence points to a direction that would warrant the training, but to me it also falls short of really being able to clearly say that it reaches that next level of asking him to undertake training.
Representative Mabry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I respectfully disagree. I think that if there were more evidence, I think that both these things can be true at the same time, right? Like, if there were more evidence at a higher standard and we could with conclusive, like a conclusive standard say, we think this happened, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt or something like that. I think at that point, the level of censure is higher, right? That might actually rise to the level of censure. And we have some examples of that. We had the potential censure of Representative Armagost based on, you know, some more concrete evidence. and I feel like when we're saying this probably happens based on the circumstances I think a recommendation that hey maybe take the sexual harassment training I don't think that's necessarily saying we believe you did it or is it the level of punishment that I would expect if we did make a conclusion that sexual harassment did in fact occur. I would add, too, that we had a pretty robust discussion, and we did dig into a lot of what was investigated. We had reports from the HR department on their investigation. We had multiple sources of folks that did corroborate what happened at the Brown Palace, not 100 percent of the folks, but enough to rise to the level of probable cause where we voted unanimously on that particular piece. So I agree with Rep Mabry that certainly it doesn't rise to these higher levels of, you know, reprimand and censure and expulsion and a fine and all those. But at this stage, at least recognizing that certainly any of us could benefit from going through sexual harassment training again. Any of us could. And so having that be one of our recommendations seems completely valid and appropriate to me at this stage.
So we've had a motion, right, and we've had a second. Any further discussion? All right. We are voting on the motion to include the recommendation of sexual harassment training in our recommendations to leadership. Ms. Berger, please call the roll. Representative Scorcia Sander?
Yes.
Mabry?
Yes.
Woodrow?
Yes.
Cooper?
Yes.
I'm sure. Yes. And that passes five to zero. So I think we have all that we wanted to include in our letter to leadership. We also are clear on all that's going to go into the report. I believe we've come to the end of our call here.
Ms. Chase. Thank you, Madam Chair. if it's the will of the committee we will prepare a draft report and circulate it to all of you to sign off on and then allow once it's final each of you to sign it to submit it to the body and typically it will be addressed to the speaker the speaker may choose to read it to the body or just have it printed in the journal but it will be it should be in the journal the report will be in this journal.
With your recommendation. Yes, I think we would all appreciate seeing a draft of the report before it goes to the speaker. Okay. Any further?
I'm sorry, Ms. Chase. Also, since the committee doesn't have its own letterhead, is it okay for us to put it on your letterhead, or do you have a different approach you'd like us to take? Thank you.
Yes, you can put it on my letterhead since you already have it, and that makes sense. any further discussion from the committee all right thank you all for your i want to thank olls um and miss burger for all of the time and effort that you've put into this committee hearing process we couldn't have done it without you and thank the committee also for your willingness to show up and go through this process together. I've been glad to be part of this committee. You guys have all been outstanding. So with that, we are adjourned. Thank you.