Ethics complaint filed against embattled state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis over alleged aide mistreatment

A constituent of embattled state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis lodged an ethics complaint against the Longmont Democrat last week, alleging that Jaquez Lewis has failed to uphold her office with integrity and the public interest by mistreating her Capitol aides. 

The complaint could lead to the most serious consequences yet for Jaquez Lewis, who has already been stripped of her committee assignments and barred from having state-paid staffers at the Capitol in light of the aide allegations.

If leadership in the Senate agrees to advance the ethics complaint — as they’ve indicated they will do — it would initiate a committee investigation that could lead to a recommendation Jaquez Lewis be expelled from the chamber. It takes a two-thirds vote of the state Senate to remove one of its members.

The complaint was filed Dec. 7 by Kai Abelkis, a Longmont resident.

“Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis has failed to uphold her office with integrity in the public interest,” Abelkis wrote. “(She has) lost my confidence in her role as a public figure.”

Abelkis described himself to The Colorado Sun as “just a concerned and engaged citizen.” He ran unsuccessfully as an unaffiliated candidate in 2014 for a seat on the Boulder County Commission. He’s donated to Democratic candidates and causes in the past.

The complaint may need to be refiled after the legislative session starts in the new year to prompt an investigation once incoming Senate President James Coleman, a Denver Democrat, formally assumes his leadership role. Abelkis said he plans to do just that to ensure an investigation moves forward. 

Coleman said on a podcast recently that he will honor any request for an ethics investigation into Jaquez Lewis. He said that “she too welcomes an investigation through (an) ethics hearing because she wants to be able to share all sides of the story.”

“We want to make sure that we have a formal investigation,” Coleman, who will become Senate president when the legislature reconvenes in January, told the “Get More Smarter” podcast. 

Coleman downplayed the decision to bar Jaquez Lewis from having state-paid aides, as well as the decision to remove her from committees after repeated complaints from her subordinates.

“It’s not about punitive measures toward the senator,” Coleman said. “It’s about making sure that any potential staff moving forward are being protected while an investigation will be moving forward.”

In a written statement to The Sun on Tuesday, Jaquez Lewis said she is “mortified about the allegations that have been made against me in the media recently.”

“I apologize if I have treated anyone with less than respect,” she said. “As a Latina and an LGBTQ person, I understand how it feels to be treated with disrespect.”

Jaquez Lewis said she has “proactively engaged a nonpartisan, non-political, HR trained management person that my staff can work with and go to for any issue.” She said she is working hard to improve her office environment and said she wants the best for her staff and others she works with.

“I believe in our Senate process and I will fully participate,” she said. “While I am focused on the important legislative work ahead, all the facts should come out and transparency is always the best for any public servant.”

Jaquez Lewis has this year been accused by two groups of legislative aides who said she mistreated them. 

At the start of the year, she was removed as chair of the Senate Local Government and Housing Committee and blocked from serving as a lead sponsor of a wage theft bill following accusations that she refused to pay one of her aides. In April, Colorado Public Radio reported that four of Jaquez Lewis’ former staffers said  “she withheld wages, set unreasonably demanding work schedules and attempted to prevent them from communicating with other people in the Democratic political sphere.”

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Last month, two of Jaquez Lewis’ most recent staffers filed a workplace misconduct complaint claiming she used one of them to do chores like yard work and bartend at a party at her home. That complaint, first reported by The Sun, led Senate leadership to remove her from committees and bar her from having state-paid staffers. 

The complaint filed Nov. 15 with the legislature’s Office of Legislative Workplace Relations alleges that Jaquez Lewis paid the aide who did the landscaping work and tended bar over the summer with a check from her campaign’s bank account. She also allegedly used campaign money to pay the same aide for knocking on doors on behalf of an Adams County commissioner candidate who was running in the Democratic primary against the wife of one of Jaquez Lewis’ intraparty legislative rivals. 

The payments, documented in the complaint with copies of checks written by Jaquez Lewis from her “Sonya For Colorado” campaign’s bank account, weren’t reported at the time on TRACER, the state’s campaign finance website. Colorado law requires candidate committees to report and itemize expenditures of $20 or more, including the name and address of the payee and the purpose of the expense. 

Colorado candidates are prohibited from using campaign funds for “personal purposes not reasonably related to the election of the candidate.” They also are barred from using their campaign accounts to donate to other campaigns. 

Jaquez Lewis amended her campaign finance filings after being contacted by The Sun. She said in her statement Tuesday that the July 6 event her aide bartended at was a campaign fundraiser, not a personal event. 

“I have never ever used taxpayer money for personal events,” she said.

Jaquez Lewis’ campaign reported one donation on July 6 — a $200 contribution from a Jamestown woman. But her leadership committee, Sonya for Dems, reported 11 donations on that day.

Jaquez Lewis was first elected to the legislature in 2018 as a state representative. She was elected to her first term in the Senate in 2020 and then reelected to a final, four-year term in November, winning the race in Senate District 17 by a roughly 2-to-1 margin. 

Her district includes parts of Boulder, Weld and Broomfield counties.

The Political Workers Guild of Colorado, the union representing some state legislative aides, issued a public letter Dec. 7 calling for Jaquez Lewis to resign or be expelled from the Senate.

“Allowing Jaquez Lewis to stay in the Democratic caucus is a reflection of the caucus and their values,” the letter said. “The last two known violations by Jaquez Lewis have been met with consequences that she ignores or claims she never heard.”

The Senate Ethics Committee was last convened earlier this year to investigate a complaint against Democratic state Sen. Faith Winter of Broomfield, who appeared intoxicated at an April 3 community meeting in Northglenn. The complaint was filed against Winter in May by the Northglenn City Council for her behavior at the gathering about a state plan to open a controversial mental health transitional living facility that could house people convicted of sex offenses.

The Senate Ethics Committee in July found that Winter had violated the Senate’s ethics rules and invited Winter to address her behavior before the full Senate and warned her that future alleged ethics rules violations related to alcohol could lead to sanctions.

Winter sought treatment for substance abuse after the meeting in April. As a result of the incident, Winter stepped down as chair of the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee. She then didn’t seek reelection as the chamber’s assistant majority leader.

The 2025 legislative session begins Jan. 8.