Embattled Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis has resigned from the Colorado Senate, just days before an ethics committee was set to decide whether to pursue a formal investigation into her treatment of aides.
The resignation came shortly before a Tuesday ethics committee hearing where Ed DeCecco, director of the legislature’s Office of Legislative Legal Services, said she apparently faked a letter of support from a former aide.
Jaquez Lewis, a Longmont Democrat, posted the announcement on her official Facebook page about 5:45 a.m. Tuesday after notifying the top Senate leader Monday night. The resignation was effective immediately.
As the reason, she cited an opportunity to serve with an unnamed regional not-for-profit that develops women and LGBTQ+ people as leaders. Her announcement did not mention the ethics investigation.
The sudden resignation — Jaquez Lewis’ belongings were still on her Senate desk in Tuesday, even as her nameplate had been stripped away — didn’t erase the weight of the allegations she faced or questions around it. Former aides accused her of creating a toxic work environment by forcing them to do yard work, randomly stripping away job titles and engaging in wage theft.
“I have never been so appalled,” Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat and chair of the ethics committee, said. “That an elected official in the state of Colorado would go to such lengths to try to hide from the truth. That type of dishonesty has no place in the Colorado Senate and I’m glad that she finally recognized that.”
Following the resignation, some lawmakers openly questioned if Jaquez Lewis broke the law with a letter impersonating another individual. She also faces a campaign finance complaint related to how she paid her aides.
Serving as an elected official “has been the honor of a lifetime,” Jaquez Lewis wrote in her resignation statement. “I have been in the General Assembly for 7 years. During that time, I have served my constituents with pride and productivity. I have passed an enormous amount of legislation and policy that hopefully benefits every citizen of Colorado and some have become national benchmarks.”
The ethics committee was set to decide later this week if allegations against her were credible enough to warrant a formal investigation into any ethics violation. That work was halted by the resignation — but also rocked by the new claim that Jaquez Lewis faked a letter of support.
As part of her response to the allegations of staff mistreatment, Jaquez Lewis submitted several letters of support from former aides, including one purportedly authored by Anna McLean. After hearing her name mentioned at an ethics hearing last week, McLean contacted the committee to say that “under no circumstances was I the author of the letter that bears my name,” DeCecco said.
Jaquez Lewis then told staff that the letter was based on prior conversations with McLean, DeCecco said. Legislative staff found it “more likely than not that Ms. McLean did not write the letter of support and, indeed, it was done without her knowledge or consent.”
In a text message to The Denver Post, Jaquez Lewis said the letter was “accidentally submitted.” She said she asked that it be removed from the public record and said she apologized for it being sent in.
Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat on the committee and a former deputy district attorney, said he hoped Jaquez Lewis’ alleged behavior warranted further examination. Fabricating a letter in the name of a former employee could be a violation of state law, he said. It would be up to a local district attorney to determine if it warrants charges.
“Since it did not come explicitly in the senator’s answer (to the allegations) or otherwise, I want to say I am sorry for what happened to all of those employees,” Roberts said during Tuesday’s hearing. “Or, technically, what was alleged to have happened but what we all may know to be true. That is not how the public should view this institution.”
Jaquez Lewis had faced escalating reprimands for her alleged mistreatment of legislative aides. Last year, Senate leadership quietly removed her as the chair of a Senate committee — a powerful position for steering legislation through the chamber — over repeated complaints about her behavior toward aides and staff.
She then was removed as a sponsor of a bill aimed at combatting wage theft over accusations she refused to sign off on paying her own aide. Allegations of a hostile work environment, and her removal from the bill over the allegations, was first reported by The Post.
Jaquez Lewis lost state funding for aides ahead of this legislative session, following allegations that she used aides to do chores around her house and to bartend at a political fundraiser. Senate leadership wrote in a letter about the decision that her treatment of staff is “now clearly a recurring issue that we have tried to address with you.”
Senate leadership also stripped her of all committee assignments — essentially sidelining her from key senate duties — ahead of the current legislative session.
Senate President James Coleman and other leaders also formed an ethics committee to look into the allegations against Jaquez Lewis. It was still early in its work.
In a statement Tuesday, Coleman said Jaquez Lewis “has dedicated years of service to the Colorado legislature and has made significant contributions to our state.”
He added: “As public officials, we must always lead by example with honesty and integrity. It is important for all of us to uphold and maintain the public’s trust. Senator Jaquez Lewis’ resignation allows us to move forward as a team focused on our goal of making Colorado the best place to live and raise a family — without distraction.”
Last week, the ethics committee’s members had expressed skepticism about Jaquez Lewis’ response to the complaints in their first public remarks on the matter.
Jaquez Lewis, who was reelected in November, had denied all wrongdoing and said she was being scapegoated by the Political Workers Guild, the union for aides, in its fight for collective bargaining.
Now a Democratic vacancy committee will fill her seat.
“The constituents of Senate District 17 are now without a voice in the Senate for the next several days, potentially weeks,” Gonzales said. “This all could have been avoided had the senator acted with integrity, paid her workers fairly and not created a toxic environment — for not one aide, but for multiple aides.”
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