Colorado’s top Democratic lawmaker is under fire for how she handled a colleague’s sexual harassment complaint against a member of their party and now faces calls for an independent investigation.
House Speaker Crisanta Duran appointed Rep. Steve Lebsock, D-Thornton, as chairman of the Local Government Committee for the 2017-18 legislative session despite knowing that the fellow lawmaker made the allegation against him seven months earlier. The accusation became public Friday and was followed by harassment complaints from two other women.
The Denver Democrat defended her decision Tuesday but acknowledged that she would not have put him in the position of power “knowing what I know today.”
Republican legislative leaders are demanding an investigation from the attorney general’s office to address what one GOP lawmaker called a “coverup.” Others are calling for the speaker’s resignation.
A new point of contention is why Duran didn’t assign any Democratic women to Lebsock’s committee — the only such instance of its kind in at least a decade, Republicans said — and didn’t notify GOP leaders of any concerns.
“The fact that you placed a known harasser with multiple accusations against him in a position of power over us, lobbyists and interns shows an incredible lapse of judgment,” state Rep. Lois Landgraf, R-Fountain, wrote in a letter to Duran. “You put us all at great risk.”
The scrutiny comes after state Rep. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, came forward Friday with allegations that Lebsock made unwanted sexual advances and tried to get her to leave with him from a legislative party in May 2016. Two other women later told The Denver Post that Lebsock had also sexually harassed them.
Winter told Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, the House speaker at the time, and then-majority leader Duran shortly after the incident but ultimately decided not to file a formal complaint. Winter defended Duran’s actions in this case, saying she did “everything correctly.” Winter filed a complaint Monday, in part because of a request from Lebsock.
Holly Tarry, who also accused Lebsock of inappropriate behavior, filed a formal complaint Tuesday with the House speaker’s office.
But assistant Republican leader Cole Wist on Tuesday said Duran should have informed GOP leaders and done more, given the alarming nature of the allegations.
“I think respecting (Winter’s) privacy is important, but it’s not the only consideration,” Wist said, adding that Duran needed “transparency in the body to make sure members and folks here in the Capitol were safe.”
Duran initially declined to comment to The Post on Friday about her decision to appoint Lebsock to a committee leadership position but addressed the situation after the Aurora Sentinel editorial board and a prominent former Republican lawmaker called on her to resign from her leadership role for how she handled the situation.
In her statement, Duran said she supports “the right of a victim to decide how they want these personal and sensitive situations to be handled” and “believed that the situation had been resolved” to Winter’s satisfaction.
Duran called on Lebsock to resign moments after the allegations surfaced Friday and temporarily removed him as committee chairman.
House leaders tried to isolate Lebsock by locating his office away from other women in the legislature. Duran’s spokesman, Dean Toda, said the appointment of all male Democratic members to Lebsock’s local government committee wasn’t intentional, saying members request their committee assignments.
Duran did not directly address the calls for an outside investigation by the attorney general’s office, but a day earlier she suggested the legislature should consider the creation of an independent body to handle complaints — part of a broader review of the legislature’s workplace harassment policies.
Under the legislature’s current workplace-harassment policy, a complaint by a lawmaker is filed with the House speaker, Senate president or their designated representative. A formal complaint is kept confidential and investigated by the top lawmakers, in coordination with legislative legal counsel. The result may end in disciplinary action, but unless it rises to the level of a public apology or censorship, it remains private.
In an interview after sending her letter, Landgraf said she doesn’t believe “it’s appropriate for members of the House to basically police themselves.”
Wist echoed Landgraf’s call for the attorney general to intervene and review the situation and current policies, saying, “We shouldn’t shy away from some scrutiny of our process.”
Wist stopped short of calling for Duran’s resignation as speaker at this point. But if an investigation shows “failures in leadership, then those leaders should be held responsible,” he said.
Lebsock’s tearful denial
The questions about how the complaint was handled came the same day that Lebsock gave a tearful interview at the Capitol to once again deny he sexually harassed the three women who came forward in The Post and to claim he was being coerced to resign by an unknown person.
He trembled as he showed call logs and hostile text messages from someone who promised him a high-salary consulting job if he resigned immediately and more pressure if he didn’t step aside.
Followed by reporters through the marbled halls of the Capitol, Lebsock took the text messages to the Colorado State Patrol to file a harassment complaint.
“Right now, I am fearful for my life,” Lebsock said.
Lebsock shared the caller’s phone number with reporters, and The Post contacted a man at the number who identified himself as Joel Sayre, a former Colorado political activist who now lives in Michigan to bring awareness to the water crisis in Flint. He said he does not know Lebsock and only learned of the allegations against him on Facebook.
He said the job offer was a ploy — it didn’t exist. “My intent was to help him feel as uncomfortable as he made (his accusers) feel,” he said.
Sayre said he is “bird-dogging” Lebsock because “he deserves to be chased out of office by the public.” He said he would keep the pressure on Lebsock to resign, including possibly driving to Colorado if he didn’t step aside.
Lebsock called the accusations against him false and blasted Democratic Party leaders, including Gov. John Hickenlooper, for demanding his resignation before hearing his side of the story. He called it “betrayal.”
Lebsock, a third-term lawmaker and party candidate for state treasurer, said he will make an announcement about his political future Nov. 30 but declined to immediately to heed calls for his resignation.
“I’m not sure if I can work in this hostile work environment,” he said. “But I also believe in telling the truth, and we’re going to get down to the bottom of it.”
In an interview, Winter said, “No one deserves to be bullied, even Rep. Lebsock,” and noted that she reported the online harassment to legislative legal services before Lebsock brought them to light.
“However,” she said, “that does not change the actions Steve Lebsock has taken against me and other women. And he continues to not take responsibility for those actions.”
Staff writer Jesse Paul contributed to this report.
