A panel of Colorado lawmakers found probable cause Monday to believe that an Aurora representative mismanaged an internal Democratic caucus fund — but not that she did so in a manner that rose to criminal misconduct.
In a unanimous 5-0 vote, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee found sufficient probable cause to further investigate whether Rep. Mandy Lindsay breached her fiduciary duty to the House Democratic caucus, for which Lindsay, the caucus’s co-chair, controlled an internal cash fund. The committee also found that she may have negligently mismanaged that account.
“There’s sloppy bookkeeping probably amounting to gross negligence, and it’s because of that sloppy bookkeeping that we’re unable to figure out exactly what happened,” said Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Denver Democrat who serves on the ethics committee.
Lindsay had been accused by another Democratic legislator, Rep. Bob Marshall of Highlands Ranch, of mismanaging the caucus fund.
He accused Lindsay of improperly reimbursing herself for nearly $9,000 worth of expenses, including $2,500 in caucus dues that she’d paid using campaign funds and then repaid to her personal bank account. He also accused her of reimbursing herself for more than $6,300 for a retreat the caucus account had already paid for.
Lindsay, who is in her second full term in the House, can now request an evidentiary hearing to defend herself. She said in an interview that she intended to do so.She said she wasn’t surprised that the committee found probable cause to believe she may have violated ethics rules and that she looked forward to providing an explanation to the panel.
“I have been looking forward to this process the whole time, so that there will be some eventual closure, or an official determination, on this issue,” she said. “So I’m actually looking forward to the hearing process because the entire time there’s been not a lot of opportunity to answer questions, for the last year.”
In a written statement to the committee, Lindsay wrote that the $2,500 reimbursement was an “oversight” and not “money laundering,” as Marshall had alleged.
As for the $6,300 payment, Lindsay said she had written the check to herself because she believed a hotel that had hosted a caucus retreat was going to charge her personal card for the event. She wrote the check preemptively, but when she learned that the hotel had correctly charged the caucus account, she kept the reimbursement check.
She later cashed it because, she said, she had spent that amount in personal funds on other caucus expenses.
Members of the ethics committee said Monday that Lindsay did not bear sole blame for the problems with the caucus fund. They discussed directing House leadership to give more guidance on best practices.
Following the evidentiary hearing, the ethics panel could to House leadership and the full chamber. Previous ethics violations have been met with letters of reprimand, but the chamber could take more forceful actions, like a censure or expulsion vote.
