A Denver progressive activist is suing two Democratic state lawmakers and the invite-only caucus they lead, alleging they violated the Colorado Open Records Act.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, is the latest front in the intraparty fight over an October legislative retreat. Derrick Blanton’s suit asks a judge in Denver to order Sen. Lindsey Daugherty and Rep. Sean Camacho to turn over records related to the Colorado Opportunity Caucus and a retreat the group organized in Vail.
According to the lawsuit, Camacho, Daugherty and the Opportunity Caucus — a group of more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers who are generally more moderate on business issues — denied Blanton’s requests for records about the retreat, arguing they had no documents responsive to his request.
Blanton’s attorney, Scott Moss, wrote in the suit that Camacho and Daugherty — who co-chair the Opportunity Caucus — and the caucus itself should have records about the costs, fundraising and attendance of the retreat. He pointed to a grid he obtained elsewhere, which he said shows that the caucus charged organizations between $25,000 and $100,000 to attend the event and give presentations to the lawmakers in attendance.
“It’s obviously a lie to claim you held a multi-day retreat with overnight stays and meeting space at a luxury mountain resort without generating any records of payment,” Moss said in an interview Friday.
In a statement Friday, Daugherty said that she, Camacho and the caucus turned over the records “we were legally required to provide.”
“This frivolous lawsuit only validates the initial reasons for forming the Opportunity Caucus — to focus on collaboration and tackle the big problems on behalf of the people we serve — not performative politics,” she wrote. “Itap unclear who benefits from this lawsuit moving forward besides Mr. Moss; itap certainly not Coloradans.”
The suit renews a simmering fight between progressive groups and the Opportunity Caucus, which formed in early 2025 with the help of One Main Street, a dark money group that financially supported the campaigns of several caucus members.
Last year, Colorado Common Cause — which Moss also represents — filed ethics complaints against almost every lawmaker who attended the retreat, accusing them of violating a constitutional provision that generally prohibits lawmakers from accepting gifts worth more than $75. The state ethics commission then began an investigation.
The caucus has refused to disclose how much organizations paid to attend the retreat, nor has it said how much it raised from the event.
The new suit invoking the open-records law, often referred to as CORA, asks for the judge to order production of the records — if, as Moss contends, additional documents exist — and, by extension, to declare that the Opportunity Caucus is subject to open records requests.
That’s an untested question: The state Supreme Court has ruled that caucuses are covered by the state’s open-meetings law, said Jeff Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. But whether they’re subject to CORA hasn’t been addressed by the courts, he said.
