This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at coloradosun.org.
By Taylor Dolven, Colorado Sun
The state’s Independent Ethics Commission will investigate complaints against Democratic lawmakers who attended a weekend retreat with lobbyists in Vail last month paid for, at least in part, by a dark money group.
Commissioners Daniel Wolf, Lori Laske and Cyril Vidergar voted Tuesday in favor of deeming the complaints “nonfrivolous” and allowing them to move forward after discussing them out of public view. Commissioner Sarah Mercer, who chairs the group, recused herself and did not provide a reason for her recusal.
The commission’s executive director Dino Ioannides said via email his office will serve the complaints to the respondents, who will have 30 days to respond after which the commission will conduct an investigation. Then, an investigation report will be provided to the parties and there will be a hearing and a final decision.
The complaints, filed earlier this month by Colorado Common Cause, a liberal-leaning nonprofit that advocates for an open government, allege 16 lawmakers who are members of the Opportunity Caucus violated Colorado’s prohibition on elected officials receiving gifts when they attended a retreat in Vail where they mingled with lobbyists at a ritzy hotel over the Oct. 4 weekend.
The complaints are against Sens. Lindsey Daugherty of Arvada, Marc Snyder of Manitou Springs, Kyle Mullica of Thornton, Judy Amabile of Boulder and Dafna Michaelson Jenet of Commerce City, and Reps. Tisha Mauro of Pueblo, William Lindstedt of Broomfield, Michael Carter of Aurora, Jacque Phillips of Thornton, Meghan Lukens of Steamboat Springs, Matthew Martinez of Monte Vista, Katie Stewart of Durango, Sean Camacho of Denver, Rebekah Stewart of Lakewood, Karen McCormick of Longmont, and Cecelia Espenoza of Denver.
Common Cause also filed a complaint against state Rep. Shannon Bird of Westminster, in connection with the Vail retreat. The complaint alleges Bird was leading the caucus through the time of the retreat. But Bird resigned as chair of the caucus in late August and did not attend the event.
Bird, who is running for Congress in the 8th Congressional District, has already filed a motion to dismiss with the commission asking it to reconsider their ruling that the complaint against her is “nonfrivolous.”
In a statement, Eve Zhurbinskiy, Bird’s congressional campaign manager, called the complaint “as false as it is absurd.”
“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,” Zhurbinskiy’s statement said.
In a statement, the Opportunity Caucus called the complaints factually inaccurate, but did not provide a list of inaccuracies.
“This is a grotesque, intentionally orchestrated miscarriage of justice,” Daugherty, who is chair of the caucus, said in a statement.
The Colorado Sun first reported that a group of Democratic state lawmakers gathered with lobbyists during the Oct. 4 weekend at the Sonnenalp Hotel in Vail for an event organized by the nonprofit Colorado Opportunity Caucus. The caucus is made up of Democratic state representatives and senators who are considered to be among the party’s more moderate wing at the Colorado Capitol.
One Main Street Colorado, another nonprofit that is affiliated with the Colorado Opportunity Caucus, spent $25,000 to cover the cost of a room block for the retreat. One Main Street, which doesn’t disclose its donors and is what The Sun refers to as a dark money group, has spent large sums supporting more moderate candidates in Democratic state legislative primaries.
The Colorado Opportunity Caucus is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that also does not disclose its donors.
The complaints ask the Independent Ethics Commission to investigate if the Democratic lawmakers who attended the retreat violated the state’s gift ban by having their lodging paid for by One Main Street. The complaints also allege One Main Street paid for legislators’ food and beverages. The complaints ask the commission, if it determines that the gift ban was violated, to order that lawmakers who attended the event reimburse or return any gifts they should not have received and that penalties be imposed.
The allegations are filed under Amendment 41 to the Colorado Constitution, approved by voters in 2006. The amendment, known as the gift ban, changed the state constitution to say a lawmaker who is a scheduled speaker or participant at an event is allowed to have a nonprofit organization pay for their “reasonable expenses,” but only if the nonprofit receives less than 5 percent of its funding from for-profit organizations.
The complaints allege that since One Main Street does not disclose its donors, none of the lawmakers who attended the Vail event could ensure that only 5 percent of the group’s funding is from for-profit organizations.
Aly Belknap, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, praised the commissioners’ decision Tuesday to investigate the complaints.
“This is a big day,” she said. “Our elected officials are elected to serve their constituents, not special interests, and this is the exact kind of conduct that feeds disillusion and distrust in government and the political process.”
The ethics commission’s decision Tuesday to move forward with an investigation appears to be further dividing Democrats, who have already been mired in infighting because of the Vail retreat.
Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib admonished Common Cause in a written statement, urging the group to withdraw its complaints because the Opportunity Caucus recently made a $25,000 donation to the Food Bank of the Rockies. Daugherty said the donation was “a good faith effort to provide some healing to Democrats and legislators at the Capitol.”
“Coloradans deserve better than to be manipulated by a Washington, D.C., dark money outfit that hides its biggest donors,” Murib said.
Similarly, Daugherty slammed Common Cause in a statement, saying they are “joining Donald Trump in attacking Democrats, trampling on justice, rejecting due process, and abandoning integrity to score cheap political points.”
While as a nonprofit Common Cause doesn’t have to reveal its donors, the organization said it was working Tuesday to provide The Sun with a list of funders. The Sun only refers to political nonprofits that refuse to reveal their donors, like One Main Street Colorado and the Colorado Opportunity Caucus, as dark money groups.
Common Cause has published a list of its donors in its annual report in the past. The group also has a donor transparency policy that requires the organization to reveal its donors above $250 upon request.
Wynn Howell, the state director of the Colorado Working Families Party, a liberal offshoot of the Democratic Party, called out Murib in a statement, saying, “It’s outrageous that while an independent ethics commission is doing its job, Colorado’s Democratic Party is doing damage control for lawmakers who took corporate gifts.”
“That’s the same corporate donor-driven politics that has broken trust nationally, and it has no place in Colorado,” Howell said.
The $25,000 donation from the Opportunity Caucus to the Food Bank of the Rockies appears to have been part of an attempted settlement agreement between Common Cause and the caucus. Daugherty said the donation was made independent of the settlement agreement talks.
The terms of Common Cause’s draft settlement agreement from Monday, obtained by The Sun, say the Opportunity Caucus would donate $25,000 to the Food Bank of the Rockies, review its governance to make sure it complies with “ethical and transparency standards,” disclose its donors each quarter and organize a training for members on the state’s gift ban. In return, Common Cause would withdraw its complaints and submit the settlement agreement to the ethics commission for publication.
The Opportunity Caucus proposed in a confidential settlement agreement also obtained by The Sun that it would either reorganize as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which would prevent it from engaging in some political activities, or begin disclosing its donors quarterly. The agreement also said the caucus would organize a training for members on the state’s gift ban.
In return, Common Cause would publish a statement saying the organization has determined that Opportunity Caucus members “did nothing illegal.”
It’s unclear how the Independent Ethics Commission’s decision to investigate the Common Cause complaints will affect the settlement talks.
Colorado Capitol Alliance
This story was produced by the Capitol News Alliance, a collaboration between KUNC News, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS, and The Colorado Sun, and shared with Rocky Mountain Community Radio and other news organizations across the state. Funding for the Alliance is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
