Colorado’s ethics commission voted unanimously Tuesday to advance 17 complaints against a group of state lawmakers, nearly all of whom attended a private Vail retreat funded in part by a dark money group.
The Independent Ethics Commission determined that the complaints were “nonfrivolous,” a first step in the ethics process that means the complaints will advance and be investigated further. The commission discussed the complaints, which are confidential, in closed-door deliberations and then voted to advance them in a bloc. They otherwise provided no comment on the complaints or their deliberations.
The vote came after negotiations to pull back the complaints, urged on by the head of the Colorado Democratic Party, failed to reach an agreement, and the commission’s decision to now investigate the allegations sparked warring statements Tuesday between the state Democratic Party, which defended the caucus’s leader and criticized the group that filed the complaints, and critics of the caucus, one of whom called the state party chair “shockingly two-faced.”
The complaints were filed by Colorado Common Cause, a government watchdog group, earlier this month. The group alleged that members of the legislative Opportunity Caucus violated a state ban on receiving gifts when they attended a private October retreat in Vail, the hotel rooms for which were paid for by One Main Street, a prominent political group that doesn’t disclose its donors.
In its complaints, Common Cause asked the ethics board to weigh whether the lawmakers violated the gift ban, and the group proposed penalties that included fines, a more extensive investigation and the equivalent of a public reprimand. The group’s executive director praised the decision in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
“Most importantly, this decision affirms the power of the Independent Ethics Commission as an avenue for public transparency and accountability, that can act when public officials need to be held accountable,” Aly Belknap wrote. “No one is above the law or the state constitution. The trust the public places in our leaders when we elect them to office is sacred and not to be taken lightly.”
Sen. Lindsey Daugherty, an Arvada Democrat and the chair of the Opportunity Caucus, sharply criticized Common Cause in a statement Tuesday afternoon, calling the ethics complaints factually inaccurate. She accused the group of trying to smear legislators and raise money off of the ethics process.
“This is a grotesque, intentionally orchestrated miscarriage of justice,” she wrote. She likened Common Cause to President Donald Trump for attacking Democrats and said Coloradans should reject their efforts to “score cheap political points.”
After the commission determines a complaint is nonfrivolous, the commission then notifies the person who’s subject to the complaint, executive director Dino Ioannides said Tuesday. Generally, the subject of the complaint has 30 days to respond. The commission then directs staff to conduct an investigation, provide a report of their findings to both sides and set a hearing.
Ioannides said there wasn’t a firm timeline for how long that process may take.
“Considering we got 17 new nonfrivolous (cases), that’s a whole new ball of wax for us in terms of coordination,” he said.
The Vail retreat was attended by more than a dozen Democratic members of the Opportunity Caucus, an invite-only group of generally more-moderate lawmakers. The event was part educational, part fundraiser: Lobbyists were also present, and organizations were required to pay a fee to attend. The Opportunity Caucus has not disclosed how much it raised or how it will use the money, and the retreat sparked criticism from other Democratic lawmakers.
A complaint was also filed against Rep. Shannon Bird, who helped launch the Opportunity Caucus earlier this year but has since stepped away from leading it. Bird, who is running for Congress, filed a motion to dismiss the complaint against her on Tuesday. Her campaign previously said she did not attend the retreat or play any role in planning it, and her legal filings note that the attorney who filed the complaints on behalf of Common Cause had endorsed one of Bird’s congressional opponents.
“We filed a motion to dismiss because this complaint is as false as it is absurd,” Bird spokeswoman Eve Zhurbinskiy said in a statement. “Shannon Bird was not at the event in question, she was not Chair of the Caucus, and she, quite literally, had nothing to do with it.”
In a separate statement, Shad Murib, the chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, defended Daugherty, and he referred to Common Cause as a dark money group. He said the Opportunity Caucus had taken “good-faith steps to address the situation … by making a sizable contribution to the Food Bank of the Rockies.”
He accused Common Cause of “trying to extract political concessions from lawmakers,” and he castigated them for being “ethically questionable” and using “gross tactics,” including by filing a complaint against Bird.
In an interview, Murib declined to comment on the private retreat at the center of the controversy and said the ethics commission should be left to decide whether it violated the law. But he criticized Common Cause and accused it of using the ethics process to raise money. He also criticized One Main Street and said it should stop participating in Democratic primary races.
Scott Moss, the attorney who filed the complaints on behalf of Common Cause, in turn blasted Murib, who he said had previously “implored” Common Cause to reach a settlement with the legislators. Moss said the food bank donation was for $25,000 and that Common Cause had initially suggested the contribution as part of settlement discussions with the Opportunity Caucus.
“An entity donating $25,000 of its own funds in no way remedies the violation of 17 legislators accepting illegal gifts,” he said. He criticized Murib as a “willing dupe of the corrupt” and accused him of being “shockingly two-faced.”
According to copies of draft settlement agreements obtained by The Post, Common Cause offered to delay Tuesday’s proceedings and later withdraw the complaints, so long as the Opportunity Caucus made the food bank donation and undertook steps to become more transparent, including by disclosing its donors. In a counteroffer, the lawmakers’ attorneys nixed the donation request but said legislators would form a new nonprofit entity to oversee the caucus and that the caucus would disclose its donors.
The caucus’s counteroffer also required Common Cause to issue a press release stating that legislators had done nothing illegal and that all of the complaints had been withdrawn.
Murib said he had intervened — in urging the sides to reach a settlement and in his statement criticizing Common Cause — because he wanted to ensure party unity.
“My interest is in the Democratic Party,” he said. “When we are divided and when we are fighting with each other, and if it appears to be for political gain, that just divides our political coalition.”
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