This is the 36th year that I’ve covered the Colorado legislature for The Denver Post. Because I walk to work from my home in Capitol Hill, I usually stop off at the statehouse to trade gossip with the legislators, lobbyists, staff members, and interested citizens who enjoy playing the great game of democracy.
Usually, those tours are convivial affairs. I’ve made a lot of friends in 36 years at the statehouse — and outlasted most of my enemies. But my walk-through Friday was a somber stroll through a statehouse community shaken by a second incident of alleged misconduct by a legislator.
It was just last Friday that Rep. Douglas Bruce, appointed to fill a vacancy in Colorado Springs District 15, received the first public censure in the legislature’s history for kicking a Rocky Mountain News photographer during the legislature’s morning prayer.
Thursday, even worse news broke. The Denver Post reported that a female lobbyist had accused Rep. Michael Garcia of exposing himself to her at a party and lewdly asking: “Wouldn’t this be real nice inside of you?”
The woman told The Post she decided to bring the incident to the attention of House Speaker Andrew Romanoff after learning of several similar allegations about Garcia stretching back through his seven years of legislative service. In a statement, he admitted he had engaged in “inappropriate conduct” but insisted it had been “consensual.”
If such events had occurred in the U.S. Congress, they would have triggered much partisan Gasconade. Bruce is a Republican and Democrats would have pointed to his loutish behavior as proof that GOP really stands for Grumpy Old Party.
Garcia is a Democrat, and his own subsequent disgrace would have prompted much gleeful Republican moralizing. Think of Republican attacks on Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct, and Democratic hilarity at the embarrassment of Idaho Sen. Larry “I Am Not Gay” Craig and you’ll understand that Washington, D.C., isn’t just the U.S. capital. It’s also the capital of The District of Schadenfreude.
Schadenfreude is a German word that roughly translates as joy in the misfortune of others. That joy is tripled if the party currently in disgrace was putting on moral airs at your expense before getting its own comeuppance, as is usually the case in Washington.
In sharp and honorable contrast, the Colorado statehouse is a Schadenfreude-free zone. Both House Speaker Romanoff and House Minority Leader Mike May have handled these twin disgraces with dignity and a genuine concern for the health of the institution they represent.
In the Bruce affair, May and his fellow Republicans doubly distinguished themselves. Bruce originally refused to be sworn in in the traditional private ceremony used for the unelected lawmakers chosen by vacancy committees. May’s Republican caucus voted 22-1 to tell Bruce to take the oath of office or they’d ask a vacancy committee to pick another replacement. The next day, Bruce kicked the photographer.
May supported the subsequent investigation, and after Bruce not only refused to apologize but repeatedly vilified his victim, May and 22 of his Republican colleagues joined the Democrats in censuring Bruce by a 62-1 vote.
Romanoff and Majority Leader Alice Madden could have used the Bruce affair to embarrass the Republicans. But because they are concerned about the moral authority of the state government in which they serve, they did no such thing.
When the Garcia incident surfaced, Romanoff and Madden were as firm as May had been in getting their own ranks in order. Investigations into such allegations are confidential, and Romanoff couldn’t even confirm whether such a probe was underway. But Garcia resigned Friday, one day after The Post broke the story, and the sequence of events speaks for itself.
Obviously, both the Bruce and Garcia affairs have hurt the legislature’s standing in the eyes of the people it serves. But the decency and integrity shown by May and Romanoff have limited the damage. Rank and file Democrats and Republicans can be proud to be represented by leaders of this caliber.
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@
) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.
