House Committee on Ethics [May 11, 2026]

the house committee on ethics will come to order miss burger please call the roll

Present.

Here.

Representative Woodrow?

Sofer?

Madam Chair?

All right. Thank you all. And I want to especially start this meeting by thanking all the folks that have responded to our multiple requests for documents pertaining to this issue. I want to especially thank our OLLS and LCS staff members, Director Tacheco, Ms. Chase, Ms. Love, Ms. Ross, Ms. Berman, Ms. Berger. You all have put in a tremendous amount of work on top of all your other work on this. and at this time in session, I just really appreciate all that you've done after hours and during hours. We have received hundreds of pieces of documentary evidence, and I think I speak for all of us on the committee in saying that we've received much more than we expected. We've met regularly over the past month reviewing and discussing the allegations in the complaint from Rep. Marshall, and I know that each of us on the committee has spent hours on our own digging into all that we've received. We've carefully considered each of the points in Rep. Marshall's complaint. We reviewed the allegation of a misappropriation of campaign funds regarding the $2,500 check from a campaign account and then reimbursement to a personal account. We have reviewed Rep. Lindsay's response to this allegation and the evidence received. We've discussed the misallocation of caucus funds in regards to the $6,358.68 reimbursement check that matched an invoice amount from the Marriott and Rep. Lindsay's response and justification for the amount and her rationale for retaining the check for reimbursement for a portion of the time she used her own funds for caucus purposes. And we've discussed the allegation of the personal use of the fund debit card, which appears to have happened once at a motel in Oregon and once at an ARC thrift store. Both times were directly reimbursed to the petty cash fund by Rep. Lindsay with checks to the fund to pay back those charges. We've read multiple email exchanges between Rep. Lindsay, Rep. Joseph, Speaker McCluskey, Rep. Marshall, and others discussing the accounting of the fund over many, many months. We've considered the audit done by the Colorado Democratic Party compliance person, Mr. Quinn, along with the apparent review and double-checking of that audit by House Democratic leadership. specifically it appears to have been Speaker McCluskey double-checking that work. We have reviewed all the evidence and with the help of OLS have constructed a timeline of evidence received and again have carefully considered Rep. Lindsay's response to Rep. Marshall's allegations. And at this point, what's clear to me after the hours and hours I've spent poring over the documents is that I agree with part of the final assessment of the audit that the fund appears to have been used for its intended purpose and not for purposes of nefarious or ill intent. I do see clear evidence of poor practice of record-keeping and accounting of the fund, possibly going back years involving more than one person. There is no budget, no ledger, no monthly reconciliation of the account, no system of oversight by anyone that it appears. I do see a failing of the basic expectation of the caucus that the caucus would have in regards to the fiduciary duties of the Office of Caucus Chair. And again, probably going back longer than we have documents to review. I do see what is likely an overuse of personal funds by Rep. Lindsay for multiple purchases for the caucus over the years without oversight or the ability to reconcile the account to know if the account was maintaining sufficient funds to warrant all the purchases that would need to be reimbursed to Rep. Lindsay. and I realize that this point wasn't in Rep. Marshall's complaint, but I believe it is important to seeing the whole picture here. I also see evidence of severe communication breakdown time and time again between the parties involved, which leaves me with a conclusion that all of this could have been avoided if there had been the setting of clear expectations, written procedures, transparency, checks and balances in the handling of the account. I wanted to be able to just spell out my assessment on all that we have reviewed and been through at this point and give a chance for members of the committee to weigh in on where you're at and your overview of what you have gained from reviewing all of the evidence along with the complaint and the response. So at this time, and also I apologize, but does our team from OLS have anything more to share with us before I hear from other members of the committee?

Thank you very much for that. And yes, I think all of us were aware of that information that came in on the weekend. So thank you. Committee members, this is your chance. I want to hear from you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. and I'm sure I would have very similar findings to what you just concluded that looking at all the evidence hundreds and now hundreds of pages which is kind of mind-boggling in this case that it does paint a pretty clear picture that the Democratic Caucus account certainly lacked appropriate oversight the manager of that account in the fiduciary relationship to the others in the caucus Representative Lindsay certainly in my opinion either managed it with a level of negligence or falling below that fiduciary responsibility. It definitely illustrates a pattern of, in some ways, I hate to use the word comical errors, but I do see kind of that pattern. I mean, you can't make this stuff up from one of the caucus co-chairs' wallet being stolen and some fraudulent transactions occurring to having many different excuses for why the caucus card was used over her personal one and then the commingling of personal funds and writing checks to and from to cover. I mean, just the pattern itself is one that certainly as an objective viewer, you would not be comfortable with what you're seeing. And for those reasons, I would concur that certainly probable cause would exist to move on to the next level for an evidentiary hearing.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think all of us pouring through so many emails and receipts, this ethics committee had a lot of evidence for us to review. And in thinking about how to put it all together, I do really appreciate the memo from OLLS breaking down analogous legal rules. Because as a lawyer, I'm like, okay, I always got to apply this to a rule. And so last night, I spent a decent amount of time applying what we see here to the rules that were outlined in that memo. And so first, I walked through whether a fiduciary relationship was established. And there was a case provided to us, Marcus v. Braxton, that recognized fiduciary status in material or similar circumstances, which was an acceptance of a duty to manage another's business funds. And then there were a few other cases they provided about deans and provosts of a law school with access to institutional funds. There was another case about somebody managing siblings and parents' assets for the benefits of all in a probate situation. And I think all of those add up to be analogous enough, especially with how much money we're talking about here. then we got a framework from the Colorado Court of Appeals about a breach of a fiduciary duty showing one a fiduciary relationship existed as I mentioned previously I think those other cases show that the management of business funds in particular in that Braxton case and then two transfer or use of trash property by the fiduciary in order to raise a rebuttal presumption that would establish a prima facie case that there was a breach. To me, the two big things are the timeline with the courtyard check, the $6,358. And all the standard asks is for a prima facie case to be established and then in the court proceedings how this would work out is Rep. Lindsay would get a chance to rebut it. I actually believe that's pretty close to our charge here, which would be a probable cause. And I just do not think that in the case of the hotel case that the narrative makes enough sense to me. If you're in a panic and you cut yourself a $6,300 check, presumably the reason why you're in a panic is you think this amount is going to hit your personal account. And the three weeks that pass before the check is cashed don't necessarily line up to me with there being a panic there. I mean, especially, and right, this is like why we're saying there's probable cause and we're opening it up for a hearing, especially if you're on a legislator salary. I don't remember the last time I had $6,300 in my checking account, and especially $6,300 that could clear and then I could pay all my other bills. And I don't know what Rep. Lindsay's finances are, and that's okay. Our job here is to just decide if there's probable cause that a violation occurred. And then the other thing I'll just say is the $2,500 dues return, there wasn't enough evidence for me to trace the missing personal check, the initial missing personal check that she wrote. And I also didn't see enough evidence to necessarily rebut the narrative in the Marshall complaint that the return only happened once. The return happened as soon as she became aware, but it seems like she became aware because she was confronted. And that, to me, also is worth digging into a little bit more. We were provided some other standards on gross negligence, substantial deviation below the standard of care expected to be maintained by a reasonably careful person. I think somebody else in charge of an $80,000 account, most other people would probably be a little bit more careful with. And I'm just talking about these two things. There's other things here, but this is around $9,000 between those two charges. I will say that the theft and money laundering allegations require a higher standard. We don't have enough evidence of mens rea or intent there for me to believe that we have enough evidence on that part. But for those first other things, I do believe that we have enough probable cause to move forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have much to add to what's already been said. I agree with what the Chair and Vice Chair and my colleague, Rep Mabry, have said already. I think there just the evidence of really poor bookkeeping and mismanagement of the caucus funds And I think there the fiduciary responsibility that you take on when you become a caucus chair to you know uphold the expectations and trust of your caucus And so I think there's just been some, there's evidence of just negligence in bookkeeping and practices. And I think that's where our probable cause lies. So I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you Madam Chair I ditto everything everyone said I think that's a really sound and thoughtful way to approach this I would just put on record that Rep. Lindsay is one of the nicest people and that's what I think makes this type of hearing exceptionally difficult I also have a lot of sympathy for someone who comes into a situation that's already a mess and and finds themselves in a very difficult position. Having said that, when you're managing other people's money, the law imputes. As Rep Mayberry said, if I do share a obligation, I think that there's sufficient evidence to show that that's been established here and that that was breached. And then there's sloppy bookkeeping probably amounting to gross negligence. and it is because of that sloppy bookkeeping that we're unable to figure out exactly what happened. And so I don't know the story fully behind Rep. Lindsay's own personal finances. I don't know why someone who's in a tight bind would be fronting so much money on behalf of the caucus. You figure if your finances are really tight, you'd be so vigilant, hyper-vigilant about getting any reimbursement And you'd be very careful not to front so much. And it tells me that there was probably something else there that you just didn't want a light shine on. And I do feel like there's also some modicum of responsibility that we should put on record with respect to the caucus co-chair who also had an obligation. There was certainly one who, like I said at the last meeting, had sort of like the less I know the better approach. And I give a lot of credit to the person who came in after the fact and sort of blew the whistle on all this because that couldn't have been easy either. And so with the deepest level of respect and admiration for Representative Lindsay, I do think that there is probable cause to find breach of fiduciary duty. and some type of gross negligence. I don't know the particulars beyond that just because the bookkeeping is such a mess. And like Rep Mayberry said, I don't think that we have enough to establish intent. So that's where I land.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, just the last thing I wanted to add was really similar to that. It could absolutely be the case that over the course of a decade or more, that whoever has been the caucus chair, they have been sort of cavalier with the money. Maybe that is the norm. And, you know, maybe we elect the caucus chair and the caucus chair before the caucus chair before the caucus chair before. I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but it could easily be the case that this is the norm of how funds have been dealt with here. And they've been like, you know, as long as we land the plane and at the end of two sessions, everybody gets breakfast and we're able to book the hotels for the things we need to book. And maybe as it was passed off to Rep. Lindsay, it wasn't super serious. And maybe leadership didn't have a set of protocols that say, hey, you're a fiduciary. This is really serious. Track everything. And Rep. Lindsay could be in an unfortunate situation here where because of the circumstances and her personal conflict that she is the one that we're taking a closer look at this. But maybe 10 years ago, if another committee took a closer look at this, it would be also not great. And so I think that's another reason why the work we're doing here is important. Maybe we can push leadership to, you know, put some more clear guidelines in place around how these funds are managed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll actually have a preface and then make the motion. I just want to preface by saying it does kind of pain me to have to make this motion because I do see Representative Lindsay as being one of the nicest members in the chamber. But our charge was to look at the documentary evidence as presented to us and to not take our personal feelings into this matter, but to only review ethical standards and the facts that we have before us. And because of that, I would move that the committee find that probable cause exists, that an ethical violation by Representative Mandy Lindsay may have occurred under breach of fiduciary responsibility and negligence, but not at a criminal level.

Second.

Representatives Garcia-Sander?

Mabry?

Woodrow?

Yes.

Yes.

Passes 5 to 0.

Excuse me. Thank you, Madam Chair. With this finding, under Rule 49D, the committee is required to notify Representative Lindsay of her that probable cause exists and that she has the right to ask for a hearing within seven days of today. so that would be seven days would be sunday so we would obviously give her till monday you can decide if you want to close a business or some other time you won't be here anymore so i'm not sure um the timing you know during the day matters much we could just say five o'clock if you'd prefer um and we can work with you to prepare that notice and get it out to her today and then after that if she were to request a hearing I think we've been here before the committee would need to determine some guidelines and procedures for operating that evidentiary hearing we can provide you some information like we did in the prior committee in the prior matter so that you can start thinking about what that might look like if she were to request a hearing then you have to start that hearing within 14 days of her request and at that hearing she has the ability to cross-examine witnesses, to present evidence, to have counsel. You also would be able to examine witnesses and request additional evidence. If she chooses not to request the hearing, then that basically concludes the work of the committee, other than you probably would want to meet again to kind of wrap up your findings and develop a report to send to the speaker. And at that time, you could also consider whether or not you want to make some recommendations to leadership about this matter.

Ms. Chase. Thank you, Madam Chair. There is no deadline in the rule for when you would need to wrap up, but it's probably better to do it sooner rather than later. Under the rules, you can meet entirely remotely as long as you're not taking any testimony, which it doesn't seem like you would be in this situation. You're just having a conversation about what your final recommendations may be, if you have any. So it is something that you'd probably have a little more flexibility in terms of scheduling.

Ms. Chase. Thank you, Madam Chair. If you'd like me to run it by you, I mean, basically it's letting her know the committee found probable cause. She has seven days to request a hearing. Here are your rights under the hearing, and we would send it under your signature.