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PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Dec 7, 2024
Contact:
PWGColorado@gmail.com, (720) 465-6060
Senate Steering At-Large, Amanda Alvarado
Chair, Drew Nesmith
Vice-Chair, Isabela Martinez
Political Workers Guild Calls for the Official Resignation or Removal of Sonya Jaquez Lewis
DENVER, Colorado – In light of continuing mistreatment of two additional staff, PWG has sent a letter to Senate Leadership calling for the immediate resignation or removal of Sen. Jaquez Lewis. If SJL will not resign, we ask for review of her actions by the Caucus and an escalation of these accusations through the convening of an Ethics Committee pursuant to Rule 43 or another method that will allow for Caucus discussion and decision. Please see the letter sent at 12pm today below.
Subject: Political Workers Guild Calling for the Official Resignation or Removal of Sonya Jaquez Lewis
The Political Workers Guild of Colorado (PWG) is an open-model minority union that represents legislative aides, campaign workers, and political organizers who want to fight for dignity in our workplaces. We want to ensure that social and economic justice is reflected in the institutions, campaigns, and organizations we staff. Recently, PWG was made aware of more workplace violations occurring in Sonya Jaquez Lewis’ office that are contrary to our union’s values. Because of this, the Political Workers Guild is calling for the immediate resignation or removal of Sonya Jaquez Lewis for repeated mistreatment of her staff. We are calling for such on the grounds of Rule 38 which states that, “The General Assembly is committed to maintaining a workplace that encourages mutual respect, that promotes respectful, professional, and congenial relationships, and that is free from harassment from or toward legislators, legislative employees, or third parties. The citizens of the State of Colorado expect their elected officials to behave in a manner befitting the honor and privilege they hold as representatives of the citizens of Colorado”. If Jaquez Lewis will not resign we ask for review of her actions by the Caucus and an escalation of these accusations through the convening of an Ethics Committee pursuant to Rule 43 or another method that will allow for Caucus discussion and decision.
The following events show multiple and clear violations of Rule 38 and are the grounds for which PWG is asking for the removal of Sonya Jaquez Lewis. In September of 2023, the Denver Post reported on concerning behavior from Jaquez Lewis and an email from leadership regarding this behavior, stating that Caucus staff would not help recruit aides for her office. In December of 2023, she was resistant to signing off on an aide’s time card. Both of these instances deeply trouble PWG. If a senior aide in an office uses the maximum number of hours available to them, they still can only complete 32 hours a week of work between June-January. Not compensating aides causes undue hardship when the allotment of hours is already below full-time. In the most recent Colorado Sun article concerning aides that Jaquez Lewis hired, Jaquez Lewis was found to have used campaign funds to hire aides to do work outside of the aide job description. As stated in the article, this is a clear violation of Colorado statute for campaign funding reports due to the lack of reporting to TRACER. Moreover, she asked one of her aides to sign a Nondisclosure Agreement, a prohibited practice under CRS 24-50.5-105.5. Further, the work the aides were engaged in shows a lack of respect and decency from Jaquez Lewis. It is contrary to the values of PWG, and we hope the values of the Senate Democrats, to make aides feel pressured to do tasks out of fear of retaliation; “The aide worried that if he didn’t accept the side jobs, Jaquez Lewis wouldn’t promote him after working for her during the 2024 legislative session as an intern” (Colorado Sun).
PWG is making this request because the actions and lack of accountability by Jaquez Lewis have been drastic. Jaquez Lewis has consistently shown that she does not have the ability to manage an office, sit in a leadership role as chair, and show basic respect and decency to staff and her colleagues. It is the belief of PWG that Jaquez Lewis should be removed from her current role as a State Senator. Allowing Jaquez Lewis to stay in the Democratic Caucus is a reflection of the Caucus and their values. The last two known violations by Jaquez Lewis have been met with consequences that she ignores or claims she never heard, as shown in both the articles cited earlier. We hope in the future a system will be set up so aides can properly express their grievances to a formal body. For too many years we have been reporting incidents that have been met with few repercussions for the legislator because of the lack of accountability mechanisms in the current system. If we believe in the fundamental right of the worker, we need this framework. PWG pledges to work with every legislator to establish it and create an infrastructure that reflects the values of those within it. Until then, we need to hold Jaquez Lewis accountable for these actions. We hope the Caucus takes the lack of accountability and the abhorrent actions on Jaquez Lewis’ part seriously. We implore you all to think about how her actions impact each and every legislative aide that has been in and will be in her office and how it sends a clear message of lack of care and accountability to the aide corps in general. Too many aides have had to experience workplace violations met with little consequences, and we hope the Senate Democrats view this as an opportunity to send a clear message; that staff in the Capitol are to be respected.