Colorado Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat, no longer faces an ethics complaint related to a retreat for Democratic lawmakers and lobbyists held in Vail last month.
Bird did not attend the Oct. 4 weekend gathering hosted by the Opportunity Caucus and funded by dark money. She had resigned as chair of the caucus, made up of Democratic state senators and representatives, Aug. 24.
She was one of 17 members of the caucus who faced complaints related to the retreat filed by Colorado Common Cause. The group decided Thursday to drop its complaint against Bird.
Colorado Common Cause lawyer Scott Moss said Bird’s attorneys provided evidence of the timing of her resignation as chair of the Opportunity Caucus. Moss said he notified the state’s Independent Ethics Commission on Thursday that it was withdrawing its complaint.
Bird is running to represent Colorado’s battleground 8th Congressional District that helped Republicans cinch control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024.
“We are grateful that Common Cause has recognized the misunderstanding on their part and has corrected the record,” Eve Zhurbinskiy, Bird’s congressional campaign manager, said in a written statement. “Shannon is proud of her record of effective and ethical leadership in Colorado and will bring the same to Washington.”
Sixteen other Opportunity Caucus Democrats still face ethics complaints that the Independent Ethics Commission voted to advance Tuesday. The lawmakers have 30 days to respond to the allegations and the commission will investigate the claims.
The ethics complaints, filed earlier this month by Colorado Common Cause, a liberal-leaning nonprofit that advocates for an open government, allege the lawmakers 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 state’s gift ban was added to the Colorado Constitution by voters in 2006 and says 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% of its funding from for-profit organizations.
The complaints allege that another dark-money nonprofit organization, One Main Street, provided $25,000 to the Opportunity Caucus to cover the cost of the hotel rooms at the event and also provided funds for food and drinks. 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% of the group’s funding is from for-profit organizations.
The Opportunity Caucus and One Main Street, both of which are nonprofits, have declined to provide a list of their donors when asked by The Sun. By law, they don’t have to disclose their funders.
