Updated on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, at 4:54 p.m.
State Senate leaders have barred Longmont Democratic Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis from having state-allocated legislative aides because of her alleged mistreatment of her staff. They said they continue to hear concerns about her behavior even after issues were raised in recent years.
The Colorado Sun reports that two of her most recent aides recently filed a complaint with the Office of Legislative Workplace Relations, alleging Jaquez Lewis used campaign funds to pay them to do personal work for her and to campaign for another candidate, without disclosing those expenses to the state’s campaign finance disclosure system.
“For this reason, in good conscience we cannot support placing an aide in your office while this behavior and complaints continue. Effective immediately your aide privileges are suspended,” stated a letter this week from Senate President-elect James Coleman, outgoing President Steve Fenberg and Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez.
Senate leaders also emphasized it’s imperative Jaquez Lewis not engage in any behavior that could be reasonably perceived as retaliation for staff complaints: “Engaging in any retaliatory behavior may constitute a violation of the Workplace Expectations policy.”
In a statement sent to CPR News, Jaquez Lewis said all of the campaign work her staff did this cycle was fully compensated and employees chose to do the work. She also said many legislative aides work on campaigns when lawmakers are not in session.
“I regret that there was an oversight” in filing the state paperwork, Jaquez Lewis said and claimed she amended the reports.
“If there was a miscommunication with these members of staff about further opportunities with my Senate office, I am sorry and certainly did not intend to mislead or hurt anyone,” Jaquez Lewis said. “These employees are all good people and I hope for the very best for them."
She said she would not comment on specific HR complaints out of respect for those employees' privacy.
Every lawmaker is allocated state money to hire one or more staff members and it’s almost unheard of for a lawmaker to be barred from hiring aides, who play an integral role at the statehouse. Their responsibilities range from performing administrative duties and managing offices to interacting with constituents and working on policy in an often high-pressure environment.
In recent years aides have organized to get increased wages and benefits.
Since she will not receive any state funds, Jaquez Lewis would have to pay for any staff out of her campaign account or her personal funds. She didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from CPR News about the latest decision.
Jaquez Lewis was recently reelected to a second four-year term, and this isn’t the first consequence she’s faced over concerns over her alleged treatment of staff.
In January, Majority Leader Rodriguez removed Jaquez Lewis as chair of the Senate Local Government and Housing Committee. And last spring, after a former aide wrote Senate leaders with a list of concerns about what she described as a “toxic” workplace and pressure to “operate in an untruthful manner,” Jaquez Lewis was barred from using Democratic Senate staff to assist in hiring her aides but did not lose her public funding for them.
“If there are complaints and they are serious, then we absolutely do take action,” Senate President Steve Fenberg told CPR News at the time, however, he said he’s not allowed to talk about individual cases.
Former legislative aides have laid out a number of workplace concerns, including that Jaquez Lewis failed to sign off on an aide’s final timesheet and appeared to use the threat of legal action to try to pressure them into submitting a false resignation letter, according to documents, text messages and phone calls reviewed by CPR News.
The concerns led to her being removed as a main sponsor of a wage theft bill, out of concern that her alleged actions contradicted the spirit of the policy.
She currently sits on the Senate’s Health & Human Services and Local Government & Housing committees.
Editor's note: This article was updated with a statement from State Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis.
